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Class r ~Z 7 

Book » 0*S3 2. 


Copyright N° 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 








AY 6 1887 







THE BLIND BROTHER. 








/ 







THE 


BLIND BROTHER: 


& Storg of 

THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL MINES. 


HOMER GREENE. 

\\ 


The author received for this story the First Prize , Fifteen Flundred 
Dollars, offered by the Youth’s Companion in 188b , 
for the Best Serial Story. 


THOMAS 


NEW YORK 
Y. CROWELL & 


'may 6 miff ) 

■ J' 9 b°< 

of washing*; 


CO., 


13 Astor Place;. 

SV^AM. i. 



Copyright, 1887, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 


RAND AVERY COMPANY, 


ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 
BOSTON. 


TO 

MY MOTHER, 

WHOSE TENDER CARE AND UNSELFISH DEVOTION 
MADE HAPPY THE DAYS OF MY 
OWN BOYHOOD, 

Book for Bogs 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, 

BY THE AUTHOR. 


Honesdale, Penn., April 6, 1887. 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Lost in the Mine u 

II. The Burned Breaker 30 

III. The Unquiet Conscience 54 

IV. The Trial. 77 

V. The Verdict 101 

VI. The Fall 123 

VII. The Shadow of Death 146 

VIII. Out of Darkness 168 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY 191 

























* 















. 

• 





/ 









































THE BLIND BROTHER. 


CHAPTER I. 

LOST IN THE MINE. 

The Dryden Mine, in the Susquehanna 
coal-fields of Pennsylvania, was worked 
out and abandoned long ago. To-day its 
headings and airways and chambers echo 
only to the occasional fall of loosened slate, 
or to the drip of water from the roof. Its 
pillars, robbed by retreating workmen, are 
crumbling and rusty, and those of its props 
which are still standing have become 
mouldy and rotten. The rats that once 
scampered through its galleries deserted it 
along with human kind, and its very name, 
from long disuse, has acquired an unaccus- 
tomed sound. 

But twenty years ago there was no 


12 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


busier mine than the Dryden from Carbon- 
dale to Nanticoke. Two hundred and 
thirty men and boys went by the slope into 
it every morning, and came out from it 
every night. They were simple and un- 
learned, these men and boys, rugged and 
rude, rough and reckless at times, but 
manly, heroic, and kindhearted. 

Up in the Lackawanna region a strike 
had been in progress for nearly two weeks. 
Efforts had been made by the strikers to 
persuade the miners down the valley to 
join them, but at first without success. 

Then a committee of one hundred came 
down to appeal and to intimidate. In 
squads of ten or more they visited the 
mines in the region, and, in the course of 
their journeyings, had come to the Dryden 
Slope. They had induced the miners to 
go out at all the workings they had thus 
far entered, and were no less successful 
here. It required persuasion, sometimes 
threats, sometimes, indeed, even blows, for 
the miners in Dryden Slope had no cause 
of complaint against their employers ; they 
earned good wages, and were content. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


13 


But, twenty years ago, miners who kept 
at work against the wishes of their fellows 
while a strike was in progress, were called 
“ black-legs,” were treated with contempt, 
waylaid and beaten, and sometimes killed. 

So the men in the Dryden Mine yielded ; 
and soon, down the chambers and along 
the headings, toward the foot of the slope, 
came little groups, with dinner-pails and 
tools, discussing earnestly, often bitterly, 
the situation and the prospect. 

The members of a party of fifteen or 
twenty, that came down the airway from the 
tier of chambers on the new north heading, 
were holding an especially animated con- 
versation. Fully one-half of the men 
were visiting strikers. They were all 
walking, in single file, along the route by 
which the mine-cars went. 

For some distance from the new cham- 
bers the car-track was laid in the airway ; 
then it turned down through an entrance 
into the heading, and from that point fol- 
lowed the heading to the foot of the slope. 
Where the route crossed from the airway 
to the heading, the space between the 


14 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


pillars had been carefully boarded across, 
so that the air current should not be turned 
aside ; and a door had been placed in the 
boarding, to be opened whenever the cars 
approached, and shut as soon as they had 
passed by. 

That door was attended by a boy. 

To this point the party had now come, 
and one by one filed through the opening, 
while Bennie, the door-boy, stood holding 
back the door to let them pass. 

“ Ho, Jack, tak’ the door-boy wi’ ye 1 ” 
shouted some one in the rear. 

The great, broad-shouldered, rough- 
bearded man who led the procession turned 
back to where Bennie, apparently lost in 
astonishment at this unusual occurrence, 
still stood, with his hand on the door. 

“ Come along, lad ! ” he said ; “ come 
along ! Ye’ll have a gret play-spell noo.” 

“ I can’t leave the door, sir,” answered 
Bennie. “ The cars’ll be cornin’ soon.” 

“ Ye need na min’ the cars. Come along 
wi’ ye, I say ! ” 

“ But I can’t go till Tom comes, anyway, 
you know.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. I 5 

The man came a step closer. He had 
the frame of a giant. The others who 
passed by were like children beside him. 
Then one of the men who worked in the 
mine, and who knew Bennie, came through 
the doorway, the last in the group, and 
said, — 

“Don’t hurt the boy; let him alone. 
His brother’ll take him out ; he always 
does.” 

All this time Bennie stood quite still, 
with his hand on the door, never turning 
his head. 

It was a strange thing for a boy to stand 
motionless like that, and look neither to 
the right nor the left, while an excited 
group of men passed by, one of whom 
had stopped and approached him, as if he 
meant him harm. It roused the curiosity 
of “ Jack the Giant,” as the miners called 
him, and, plucking his lamp from his cap, 
he flashed the light of it up into Bennie’s 
face. 

The boy did not stir ; no muscle of his 
face moved ; even his eyes remained open 
and fixed. 


1 6 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

“ Why, lad ! lad ! What’s the matter wi’ 
ye ? ” There was tenderness in the giant’s 
voice as he spoke, and tenderness in his 
bearded face as Bennie answered, — 

“ Don’t you know ? I’m blind.” 

“ Blind ! An’ a-workin’ i’ the mines ? ” 

“ Oh, a body don’t have to see to ’tend 
door, you know. All I’ve to do is to open 
it when I hear the cars a-comin’, an’ to 
shut it when they get by.” 

“ Aye, that’s true ; but ye did na get 
here alone. Who helpit ye ? ” 

Bennie’s face lighted up with pleasure, as 
he answered, — 

“ Oh, that’s Tom ! He helps me. I 
couldn’t get along without him ; I couldn’t 
do any thing without Tom.” 

The man’s interest and compassion had 
grown, as the conversation lengthened, and 
he was charmed by the voice of the child. 
It had in it that touch of pathos that often 
lingers in the voices of the blind. He 
would hear more of it. 

“ Sit ye, lad,” he said ; “ sit ye, an’ tell 
me aboot Tom, an’ aboot yoursel’, an’ a’ ye 
can remember.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 7 

Then they sat down on the rude bench 
together, with the roughly hewn pillar of 
coal at their backs, blind Bennie and Jack 
Rennie, the giant, and while one told the 
story of his blindness* and his blessings, 
and his hopes, the other listened with 
tender earnestness, almost with tears. 

Bennie told first about Tom, his brother, 
who was fourteen years old, two years older 
than himself. Tom was so good to him ; 
and Tom could see, could see as well as 
anybody. “Why,” he exclaimed, “Tom 
can see every thing ! ” 

Then he told about his blindness ; how 
he had been blind ever since he could 
remember. But there was a doctor, he 
said, who came up once from Philadelphia 
to visit Major Dryden, before the major 
died ; and he had chanced to see Tom and 
Bennie up by the mines, and had looked 
at Bennie’s eyes, and said he thought, if 
the boy could go to Philadelphia and have 
treatment, that sight might be restored. 

Tom asked how much it would cost, and 
the doctor said, “ Oh, maybe a hundred 
dollars ; ” and then some one came and 


1 8 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

called the doctor away, and they had never 
seen him since. 

But Tom resolved that Bennie should go 
to Philadelphia, if ever he could save money 
enough to send him. 

Tom was a driver-boy in Dryden Slope 
and his meagre earnings went mostly t 
buy food and clothing for the little famil 
But the dollar or two that he had bee 
accustomed to spend each month for him' 
self he began now to lay aside for Bennie 

Bennie knew about it, of course, an 
rejoiced greatly at the prospect in store f 
him, but expressed much discontent b 
cause he, himself, could not help to obtai 
the fund which was to cure him. The 
Tom, with the aid of the kindhearted min 
superintendent, found employment for hi 
brother as a door-boy in Dryden Slope, an 
Bennie was happy. It wasn’t absolutel 
necessary that a door-boy should see ; i 
he had good hearing he could get alon 
very well. 

So every morning Bennie went down th 
slope with’ Tom, and climbed into an empt 
mine-car, and Tom’s mule drew them, rat 




THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 9 

tling along the heading, till they reached, 
almost a mile from the foot of the slope, 
the doorway where Bennie staid. 

Then Tom went on, with the empty cars, 
up to the new tier of chambers, and brought 
the loaded cars back. Every day he passed 
through Bennie’s doorway on three round 
trips in the forenoon, and three round trips 
in the afternoon ; and every day, when the 
noon-hour came, he stopped on the down- 
trip, and sat with Bennie on the bench by 
the door, and both ate from one pail the 
dinner prepared for them by their mother. 

When quitting time came, and Tom went 
down to the foot of the slope with his last 
trip for the day, Bennie climbed to the top 
of a load, and rode out, or else, with his 
hands on the last car of the trip, walked 
safely along behind. 

“ And Tom and me together have a’most 
twenty dollars saved now ! ” said the boy 
exultingly. “An’ we’ve only got to get 
eighty dollars more, an’ then I can go an’ 
buy back the sight into my eyes ; an’ then 
Tom an’ me we’re goin’ to work together 
all our lives. Tom, he’s goin’ to get a 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


20 


chamber an’ be a miner, an’ I’m goin’ to 
be Tom’s laborer till I learn how to mine, 
an’ then we’re goin’ to take a contract 
together, an’ hire laborers, an’ get rich, an’ 
then — why, then Mommie won’t have to 
work any more ! ” 

It was like a glimpse of a better world 
to hear this boy talk. The most favored 
child of wealth that ever revelled seeing in 
the sunlight has had no hope, no courage, 
no sublimity of faith, that could compare 
with those of this blind son of poverty and 
toil. He had his high ambition, and that 
was to work. He had his sweet hope to 
be fulfilled, and that was to see. He had 
his earthly shrine, and that was where his 
mother sat. And he had his hero of 
heroes, and that was Tom. 

There was no quality of human good- 
ness, or bravery, or excellence of any kind, 
that he did not ascribe to Tom. He would 
sooner have disbelieved all of his four re- 
maining senses than have believed that Tom 
would say an unkind word to Mommie or 
to him, or be guilty of a mean act towards 
any one. 



THE BLIND BROTHER. 21 

Bennie’s faith in Tom was fully justified. 
No nineteenth century boy could have 
Been more manly, no knight of old could 
B|ive been more true and tender, than was 
Tom to the two beings whom he loved 
p^est upon all the earth. 

“ But the father, laddie,” said Jack, 
still charmed and curious ; “ whaur’s the 
father ? ” 

■ “ Dead,” answered Bennie. “ He came 
frbm the old country first, an’ then he sent 
for Mommie an’ us, an’ w’en we got here 
he was dead.” 

m “ Ah, but that was awfu’ sad for the 
mither ! Took wi’ the fever, was he ? ” 

;Jl “ No ; killed in the mine. Top coal fell 
an’ struck him. That’s the way they found 
him. We didn’t see him, you know. That 
was two weeks before me an’ Tom an’ 
Mommie got here. I wasn’t but four years 
old then, but I can remember how Mom- 
mie cried. She didn’t have much time to 
cry, though, ’cause she had to work so hard. 
Mommie’s al’ays had to work so hard,” 
added Bennie, reflectively. 

; * The man began to move, nervously, on 


22 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


the bench. It was apparent that some 
strong emotion was taking hold of him. 
He lifted the lamp from his cap again and 
held it up close to Bennie’s face. 

“ Killed, said ye — i’ the mine — top coal 
fell?” 

“ Yes, an’ struck him on the head ; they 
said he didn’t ever know what killed him.” 

The brawny hand trembled so that the 
flame from the spout of the little lamp went 
up in tiny waves. 

“ Whaur — whaur happenit it — i’ what 
place — i’ what mine ?” 

“ Up in Carbondale. No. 6 shaft, I think 
it was ; yes, No. 6.” 

Bennie spoke somewhat hesitatingly. 
His quick ear had caught the change in 
the man’s voice, and he did not know what 
it could mean. 

“His name, lad ! gi’ me the father’s 
name ! ” 

The giant’s huge hand dropped upon 
Bennie’s little one, and held it in a painful 
grasp. The boy started to his feet in fear. 

“ You won’t hurt me, sir! Please don’t 
hurt me ; I can’t see ! ” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


23 




k\ 


<k 


“ Not for the warld, lad ; not for the 
whole warld. But I must ha’ the father’s 
name ; tell me the father’s name, quick ! ” 

“ Thomas Taylor, sir,” said Bennie, as he 
sank back, trembling, on the bench. 

The lamp dropped from Jack Rennie’s 
hand, and lay smoking at his feet. His 
hugh frame seemed to have shrunk by at 
least a quarter of its size ; and for many 
minutes he sat, silent and motionless, see- 
ing as little of the objects around him as 
did the blind boy at his side. 

At last he roused himself, picked up his 
lamp, and rose to his feet. 

“ Well, lad, Bennie, I mus’ be a-goin’ ; 
good-by till ye. Will the brither come for 
ye ? ” 


“Oh, yes!” answered Bennie, “Tom 
al’ays stops for me ; he aint come up from 
the foot yet, but he’ll come.” 

Rennie turned away, then turned back 
again. 

“ Whaur’s the lamp ? ” he asked ; “ have 
ye no licht ? ” 

“ No ; I don’t ever have any. It wouldn’t 
be any good to me, you know.” 


24 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 




Once more the man started down the 
heading, but, after he had gone a short dis- 
tance, a thought seemed to strike him, and 
he came back to where Bennie was still 
sitting. 

“ Lad, I thocht to tell ye ; ye s’all go to 
the city wi’ your eyes. I ha’ money to sen’ 
ye, an’ ye s’all go. I — I — knew — the 
father, lad.” 

Before Bennie could express his surprise 
and gratitude, he felt a strong hand laid 
gently on his shoulder, and a rough, 
bearded face pressed for a moment against 
his own, and then his strange visitor was 
gone. 

Down the heading the retreating foot- 
steps echoed, their sound swallowed up at 
last in the distance ; and up at Bennie’s 
doorway silence reigned. 

For a long time the boy sat, pondering 
the meaning of the strange man’s words 
and conduct. But the more he thought 
about it the less able was he to understand 
it. Perhaps Tom could explain it, though ; 
yes, he would tell Tom about it. Then it 
occurred to him that it was long past time 




THE BLIND BROTHER. 


25 


for Tom to come up from the foot with his 
last trip for the day. It was strange, too, 
that the men should all go out together 
that way ; he didn’t understand it. But if 
Tom would only come — 

He rose and walked down the heading 
a little way ; then he turned and went up 
through the door and along the airway ; 
then he came back to his bench again, and 
sat down. 

He was sure Tom would come ; Tom 
had never disappointed him yet, and he 
knew he would not disappoint him for the 
world if he could help it. He knew, too, 
that it was long after quitting-time, and 
there hadn’t been a sound, that he could 
hear, in the mine for an hour, though he 
had listened carefully. 

After a while he began to grow nervous ; 
the stillness became oppressive ; he could 
not endure it. He determined to try to 
find the way out by himself. He had 
walked to the foot of the slope alone once, 
the day Tom was sick, and he thought he 
could do it again. 

So he made sure that his door was 


2 6 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


tightly closed, then he took his dinner-pail,, 
and started bravely down the heading* 
striking the rails of the mine car-track on ; | 
each side with his cane as he went along, '* 
to guide him. 

Sometimes he would stop and listen, for 
a moment, if, perchance, he might hear,. 
Tom coming to meet him, or, possibly, 3 
some belated laborer going out from an-? 
other part of the mine ; then, hearing- 
nothing, he would trudge on again. 

After a long time spent thus, he thought 
he must be near the foot of the slope ; he 
knew he had walked far enough to be 
there. He was tired, too, and sat down on ] 
the rail to rest. But he did not sit there • 
long; he could not bear the silence, it was^ 
too depressing, and after a very little while 
he arose and walked on. The caps in the 
track grew higher ; once he stumbled over 
one of them and fell, striking his side on 
the rail. He was in much pain for a few 
minutes ; then he recovered and went on 
more carefully, lifting his feet high with 
every step, and reaching ahead with his 
cane. But his progress was very slow, i 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


27 


Then there came upon him the sensation 
qf being in a strange place. It did not 
^eem like the heading along which he went 
tq and from his daily work. He reached 
out with his cane upon each side, and 
touched nothing. Surely, there was no 
jjglace in the heading so wide as that. 

:> But he kept on. 

By-and-by he became aware that he was 
ingoing down a steep incline. The echoes 
: of his footsteps had a hollow sound, as 
though he were in some wide, open space, 
and his cane struck one, two, three, props 
in succession. Then he knew he was 
somewhere in a chamber ; and knew, too, 
that he was lost. 

!5$He sat down, feeling weak and faint, 
and tried to think. He remembered that, 
at a point in the heading about two-thirds 
of the way to the foot, a passage branched 
off to the right, crossed under the slope, 
•and ran out into the southern part of the 
mine, where he had never been. He 
thought he must have turned into this 
cross-heading, and followed it, and if he 
had, it would be hard indeed to tell where 

-» 


28 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


he now was. He did not know whether to | 
go on or to turn back. ‘ 

Perhaps it would be better, after all, to | 
sit still until help should come, though it ; 
might be hours, or even days, before any 
one would find him. 

Then came a new thought. What would 
Tom do ? Tom would not know where he 
had gone; he would never think of look- 
ing for him away off here ; he would 
up the heading to the door, and not findin: 
him there, would think that his brother ha< 
already gone home. But when he knew 1 
that Bennie was not at home, he would" 
surely come back to the mine to search 
for him ; he would come down the slope ; 
maybe he was, at that very moment, at th 
foot ; maybe Tom would hear him if f 
should call, “ Tom ! O Tom ! ” 

The loudest thunder-burst could nc 
have been more deafening to the frigh 
ened child than the sound of his own voice 
as it rang out through the solemn stillnes: 
of the mine, and was hurled back to hi^ 
ears by the solid masses of rock and coal 
that closed in around him. 




THE BLIND BROTHER. 


29 


f 


A thousand echoes went rattling down 
the wide chambers and along the narrow 
galleries, and sent back their ghosts to play 
upon the nervous fancy of the frightened 
child. He would not have shouted like 
that again if his life had depended on it. 

Then silence fell upon him ; silence like 
a pall — oppressive, mysterious and awful 
silence, in which he could almost hear the 
beating of his own heart. He could not 
encftfre that. He grasped his cane again 
and Started on, searching for a path, stum- 
bling over caps, falling sometimes, but on 
and on, though never so slowly ; on and 
on until, faint and exhausted, he sank 
do#n upon the damp floor of the mine, 
with his face in his hands, and wept, in 
silent agony, like the lost child that he 
was. 

■Lost, indeed, with those miles and miles 
Xi/f black galleries opening and winding and 
crossing all around him, and he, lying pros- 
. tiW'dte and powerless, alone in the midst of 
h/tHp a t desolation. 


30 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE BURNED BREAKER. 


For a long time Bennie lay there, piti- 
fully weeping. Then, away off somewhere 
in the mine, he heard a noise. He lif 
his head. By degrees the noise gr 
louder ; then it sounded almost like foot- 
steps. Suppose it were some one coii^ 
ing ; suppose it were Tom ! The light 
of hope flashed up in Bennie’s breast with 
the thought. 

But the sound ceased, the stillness set 
tied down more profoundly than before, 
and about the boy’s heart the fear an$f 
loneliness came creeping back. Was it 
possible that the noise was purely imagi 
ary ? 

Suddenly, tripping down the passages’^: 
bounding from the walls, echoing through 
the chambers, striking faintly, but, oh, how 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


31 


sweetly, upon Bennie’s ears, came the well- 
known call, — 

“ Ben-nie-e-e-e ! ” 


The sound died away in a faint succes- 
sion of echoing es. 

Bennie sprang to his feet with a cry. 

“ Tom ! Tom ! Tom, here I am.” 

Before the echoes of his voice came back 
to him they were broken by the sound of 
running feet, and down the winding galler- 
ies came Tom, as fast as his lamp and his 
legs would take him, never stopping till he 
and Bennie were in one another’s arms. 

' “ Bennie, it was my fault ! ” exclaimed 

Tom. “ Patsy Donnelly told me you went 
out with Sandy McCulloch while I was up 
at the stables; an’ I went way home, an’ 
Mommie said you hadn’t been there, an’ I 
came back to find you, an’ I went up to 
your door an’ you wasn’t there, an’ I called 
in’ called, an’ couldn’t hear no answer ; an’ 
hen I thought maybe you’d tried to come 
out alone, an’ got off in the cross headin’ 
jan’ got lost, an’ ” — 

Tom stopped from sheer lack of breath, 
and Bennie sobbed out, — 


32 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


“ I did, I did get lost an’ scared, an’ — 
an’ — O Tom, it was awful ! ” 

The thought of what he had experi- 
enced unnerved Bennie again, and, still 
holding Tom’s hand, he sat down on the 
floor of the mine and wept aloud. 

“There, Bennie, don’t cry!” said Tom, 
soothingly ; “ don’t cry ! You’re found 
now. Come, jump up an’ le’s go home; 
Mommie’ll be half-crazy.” It was touching 
to see the motherly way in which this boy 
of fourteen consoled and comforted his 
weaker brother, and helped him again to 
his feet. With his arm around the blind 
boy’s waist, Tom led him down, through 
the chambers, out into the south heading, 
and so to the foot of the slope. 

It was not a great distance ; Bennie’s 
progress had been so slow that, although 
he had, as he feared, wandered off by the 
cross heading into the southern part of 
the mine, he had not been able to get very 
far away. 

At the foot of the slope they stopped to 
rest, and Bennie told about the strange 
man who had talked with him at the door- 



THE BLIND BROTHER. 


33 


way. Tom could give no explanation of 
the matter, except that the man must have 
been one of the strikers. The meaning 
of his strange conduct he could no more 
understand than could Bennie. 

It was a long way up the slope, and for 
more than half the distance it was very 
steep ; like climbing up a ladder. Many 
times on the upward way the boys stopped 
to rest. Always when he heard Bennie’s 
breathing grow hard and laborious, Tom 
would complain of being himself tired, and 
they would turn about and sit for a few 
moments on a tie, facing down the slope. 

Out at last into the quiet autumn night! 
Bennie breathed a long sigh of relief when 
he felt the yielding soil under his feet and 
the fresh air in his face. 

Ah ! could he but have seen the village 
lights below him, the glory of the sky and 
the jewelry of stars above him, and the 
half moon slipping up into the heavens 
from its hiding-place beyond the heights of 
Campbell’s Ledge, he would, indeed, have 
known how sweet and beautiful the upper 
earth is, even with the veil of night across 


34 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


it, compared with the black recesses of the 
mine. 

It was fully a mile to the boys’ home ; 
but, with light hearts and willing feet, they 
soon left the distance behind them, and 
reached the low-roofed cottage, where the 
anxious mother waited in hope and fear 
for the coming of her children. 

“ Here we are, Mommie ! ” shouted 
Tom, as he came around the corner and 
saw her standing on the doorstep in the 
moonlight watching. Out into the road 
she ran then, and gathered her two boys 
into her arms, kissed their grimy, coal- 
blackened faces, and listened to their oft- 
interrupted story, with smiles and with 
tears, as she led them to her house. 

But Tom stopped at the door and turned 
back. 

“ I promised Sandy McCulloch,” he said, 
“ to go over an’ tell him if I found Bennie. 
He said he’d wait up for me, an’ go an’ 
help me hunt him up if I came back with- 
out him. It’s only just over beyond the 
breaker ; it won’t take twenty minutes, 
an’ Sandy’ll be expectin’ me.” 


THE BUND BROTHER. 


35 


And without waiting for more words, 
the boy started off on a run. 

was already past ten o’clock, and he 
had not had a mouthful of supper, but 
that was nothing in consideration of the 
fact that Sandy had been good to him, and 
would have helped him, and was, even 
now, waiting for him. So, with a light 
and grateful heart, he hurried on. 

He passed beyond the little row of cot- 
tages, of which his mother’s was one, over 
the hill by a foot-path, and then along the 
mine car-track to the breaker. Before 
him the great building loomed up, like 
some huge castle of old, cutting its out- 
lines sharply against the moon-illumined 
sky, and throwing a broad black shadow 
for hundreds of feet to the west. 

Through the shadow went Tom, around 
by the engine-room, where the watchman’s 
light was glimmering faintly through the 
grimy window ; out again into the moon- 
light, up, by a foot-path, to the summit of 
another hill, along by another row of dark- 
ened dwellings, to a cottage where a light 
was still burning, and there he stopped. 


3 6 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

The door opened before he reached it, 
and a man in shirt-sleeves stepped out and 
hailed him : 

“Is that you, Tom? An’ did ye find 
Bennie ? ” 

“ Yes, Sandy. I came to tell you we 
just got home. Found him down in the 
south chambers ; he tried to come out 
alone, an’ got lost. So I’ll not need you, 
Sandy, with the same thanks as if I did, 
an’ good-night to you ! ” 

“ Good-nicht till ye, Tom ! I’m glad the 
lad’s safe wi’ the mither. Tom,” as the 
boy turned away, “ ye’ll not be afeard to 
be goin’ home alone ? ” 

Tom laughed. 

“Do I looked scared, Sandy? Give 
yourself no fear for me ; I’m afraid o’ 
naught.” 

Before Sandy turned in at his door, 
Tom had disappeared below the brow of 
the hill. The loose gravel rolled under 
his feet as he hurried down, and once, 
near the bottom, he slipped and fell. 

As he rose, he was astonished to see the 
figure of a man steal carefully along in 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


37 


the shadow of the breaker, and disappear 
around the corner by the engine-room. 

Tom went down cautiously into the 
shadow, and stopped for a moment in the 



loading-place to listen. He 


thought he heard a noise in there ; some- 
thing that sounded like the snapping of 
dry twigs. 

The next moment a man came out from 
under that portion of the breaker, with his 
head turned back over his shoulder, mut- 
tering, as he advanced toward Tom, — 

“There, Mike, that’s the last job o’ that 
kind I’ll do for all the secret orders i’ the 
warl’. They put it on to me because I’ve 
got no wife nor childer, nor ither body to 
cry their eyes oot, an’ I get i’ the prison 
for it. But I’ve had the hert o’ me touched 
the day, Mike, an’ I canna do the like o’ 
this again ; it’s the las’ time, min’ ye, the 
las’ time I — Mike! — why, that’s no’ 
Mike ! Don’t ye speak, lad ! don’t ye 
whusper ! don’t ye stir ! ” 

The man stepped forward, a very giant 
in size, with a great beard floating on his 
breast, and laid his brawny hands on 


38 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


Tom’s shoulders with a grip that made 
the lad wince. 

Tom did not stir; he was too much 
frightened for one thing, too much aston- 
ished for another. For, before the man 
had finished speaking, there appeared un- 
der the loading-place in the breaker a lit- 
tle flickering light, and the light grew into 
a flame, and the flame curled around the 
coal-black timbers, and sent up little red 
tongues to lick the cornice of the long, 
low roof. Tom was so astounded that he 
could not speak, even if he had dared. 
But this giant was standing over him, 
gripping his shoulders in a painful clutch, 
and saying to him, in a voice of emphasis 
and determination, — 

“ Do ye see me, lad ? Do ye hear me ? 
Then I say to ye, tell a single soul what 
ye’ve seen here the night, an’ the life 
o’ ye’s not worth the dust i’ the road. 
Whusper a single word o’ it, an’ the Molly 
Maguires ’ll tak’ terrible revenge o’ ye’! 
Noo, then, to your home ! Rin ! an’ gin 
ye turn your head or speak, ye s’all wish 
ye’d ’a’ been i’ the midst o’ the fire instead.” 































































THE BLIND BROTHER. 4 1 

With a vigorous push, he sent Tom from 
him at full speed down the track. 

But the boy had not gone far before the 
curiosity that overtook Lot’s wife came 
upon him, and he turned and looked. He 
was just in time to see and hear the sleepy 
watchman open the door of the engine- 
room, run out, give one startled look at 
the flames as they went creeping up the 
long slant of roof, and then make the still 
night echo with his cry of “ Fire ! ” 

Before twenty minutes had passed, the 
surrounding hills were alive with people 
who had come to look upon the burning 
breaker. 

The spectacle was a grand one. 

For many minutes the fire played about 
in the lower part of the building, among 
the pockets and the screens, and dashed 
up against the base of the shaft-tower like 
lapping waves. Then the small square 
windows, dotting the black surface of the 
breaker here and there up its seventy feet 
of height, began to redden and to glow 
with the mounting flames behind them ; 
a column of white smoke broke from the 


42 


7 HE BLIND BROTHER. 


topmost cornice, little red tongues went 
creeping up to the very pinnacle of the 
tower, and then from the highest point of 
all a great column of fire shot far up to- 
ward the onlooking stars, and the whole 
gigantic building was a single body of 
roaring, wavering flame. 

It burned rapidly and brilliantly, and 
soon after midnight there was but a mass 
of charred ruins covering the ground where 
once the breaker stood. 

There was little that could be saved; 
the cars in the loading-place, the tools 
in the engine-room, some loose lumber, 
and the household effects from a small 
dwelling-house nearby; that was all. But 
among the many men who helped to save 
this little, none labored with such energetic 
effort, such daring zeal, such superhuman 
strength, as the huge-framed, big-bearded 
man they called Jack Rennie. 


The strike had become general. The 
streets of the mining towns were filled with 
idle, loitering men and boys. The drink- 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


43 


ing saloons drove a brisk business, and die 
merchants feared disaster. Tom had not 
told any one as yet of his adventure at the 
breaker on the night of the fire. He knew 
that he ought to disclose his secret ; in- 
deed, he felt a pressing duty upon him to 
do so in order that the crime might be 
duly punished. But the secret order of 
Molly Maguires was a terror in the coal 
regions in those days; the torch, the pistol, 
and the knife were the insruments with 
which it carried out its desperate decrees, 
and Tom was absolutely afraid to whisper 
a word of what he knew, even to his 
mother or to Bennie. 

But one day the news went out that 
Jack Rennie had been arrested, charged 
with setting fire to the Valley Breaker ; 
and soon afterward a messenger came to 
the house of the Widow Taylor, saying that 
Tom was wanted immediately in Wilkes- 
barre at the office of Lawyer Pleadwell. 

Tom answered this summons gladly, as 
it might possibly afford a means by which 
he would be compelled to tell what he 
knew about the fire, with the least respon- 


44 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


sibility resting on him for the disclosure. 
But he resolved that, in no event, would 
he speak any thing but the truth. 

After he was dressed and brushed to the 
satisfaction of his careful mother, Tom 
went with the messenger to the railroad 
station, and the fast train soon brought 
them into the city of Wilkesbarre, the 
county town of Luzerne County. 

On one of the streets radiating from 
the court-house square, they stopped be- 
fore a dingy-looking door on which was 
fastened a sign reading: “James G. Plead - 
well, Attorney-at-Law.” 

Tom was taken, first, into the outer 
room of the law-offices, where a man sat 
at a table writing, and two or three other 
men, evidently miners, were talking to- 
gether in a corner; and then, after a few 
moments, the door into an inner apart- 
ment was opened and he was called in 
there. This room was more completely 
furnished than the outer one ; there was 
a carpet on the floor, and there were pic- 
tures on the walls ; also there were long 
shelves full of books, all bound alike in 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


45 


leather, all with red labels near the tops 
and black labels near the bottoms of their 
backs. 

At the farther side of the room sat a 
short, slim, beardless man, with pale face 
and restless eyes, whom Tom recognized 
as having been in the mine with the visit- 
ing strikers the day Bennie was lost ; and 
by a round centre table sat Lawyer Plead- 
well, short and stout, with bristly mus- 
tache and a stubby nose on which rested a 
pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses. 

As Tom entered the room, the lawyer 
regarded him closely, and waving his hand 
towards an easy chair, he said, — 

“Be seated, my lad. Your name is — 
a’ — let me see” — 

“Tom — Thomas Taylor, sir,” answered 
the boy. 

“ Well, Tom, you saw the fire at the 
Valley Breaker ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Tom ; “ I guess I was 
the first one ’at saw it.” 

“ So I have heard,” said the lawyer, 
slowly; then, after a pause, — 

“ Tom have you told to any one what 


46 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


you saw, or whom you saw at the mo- 
ment of the breaking out of that fire ? ” 

“ I have not, sir,” answered Tom, won- 
dering how the lawyer knew he had seen 
any one. 

“ Do you expect, or desire, to disclose 
your knowledge ?” 

“I do,” said Tom; “I ought to a’ told 
before ; I meant to a’ told, but I didn’t 
dare. I’d like to tell now.” 

Tom was growing bold ; he felt that he 
had kept the secret long enough and that, 
now, it must out. 

Lawyer Pleadwell twirled his glasses 
thoughtfully for a few moments, then 
placed them deliberately on his nose, and 
turned straight to Tom. 

“ Well, Tom,” he said, “ we may as well 
be plain with you. I represent Jack 
Rennie, who is charged with firing this 
breaker, and Mr. Carolan here is officially 
connected with the order of Molly Ma- 
guires, in pursuance of whose decree the 
deed is supposed to have been done. We 
have known, for some time, that a boy was 
present when the breaker was fired. Last 


J 












THE BLIND BROTHER. 49 

night we learned that you were that boy. 
Now, what we want of you is simply this : 
to keep your knowledge to yourself. This 
will be to your own advantage as well as 
for the benefit of others. Will you do 
it?” 

To Tom, the case had taken on a new 
aspect. Instead of being, as he had sup- 
posed, in communication with those who 
desired to punish the perpetrators of the 
crime, he found himself in the hands of 
the prisoner’s friends. But his Scotch 
stubbornness came to the rescue, and he 
replied, — 

“ I can’t do it, sir; it wasn’t right to burn 
the breaker, an’ the man ’at done it ought 
to go to jail for it.” 

Lawyer Pleadwell inserted a thumb into 
the arm-hole of his vest, and poised his 
glasses carefully in his free hand. He was 
preparing to argue the case with Tom. 

“ Suppose,” said he, “ you were a miner, 
as you hope to be, as your father was be- 
fore you ; and a brutal and soulless cor- 
poration, having reduced your wages to 
the starvation-point, while its vaults were 


50 THE BLIND BROTHER . 

gorged with money, should kick you, like 
a dog, out of their employ, when you 
humbly asked them for enough to keep 
body and soul together. Suppose you 
knew that the laws were made for the rich 
and against the poor, as they are, and that 
your only redress, and a speedy one, would 
be to spoil the property of your persecu- 
tors till they came to treat you like a 
human being, with rights to be respected, 
as they surely would, for they fear nothing 
so much as the torch ; would you think it 
right for a fellow-workman to deliver you 
up to their vengeance and fury for having 
taught them such a lesson ? ” 

The lawyer placed his glasses on his 
nose, and leaned forward, eagerly, towards 
Tom. 

The argument was not without its effect. 
Tom had long been led to believe that cor- 
porations were tyrannical monsters. But 
the boy’s inherent sense of right and 
wrong was proof against even this specious 
plea. 

“ All the same,” he said, “ I can’t make 
out ’at it’s right to burn a breaker. Why,” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


51 


he continued, “ you might say the same 
thing if it’d ’a been murder.” 

Pleadwell saw that he was on the wrong 
track with this clear-headed boy. 

“ Well,” he said, settling back in his 
chair, “ if peaceful persuasion will not 
avail, I trust you are prepared, in case of 
disclosure, to meet whatever the Molly 
Maguires have in store for you ? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Tom, boldly, “ I am. 
I’ve been afraid of ’em, an’ that’s what’s 
kept me from tellin’ ; but I won’t be a 
coward any more ; they can do what they’re 
a mind to with me.” 

The lawyer was in a quandary, and Car- 
dan shot angry glances at Tom. Here 
was a lad who held Jack Rennie’s fate in 
his hands, and whom neither fear nor per- 
suasion could move. What was to be 
done ? 

Pleadwell motioned to Carolan, and 
they rose and left the room together ; 
while Tom sat, with tumultuously beating 
heart, but with -constantly increasing reso- 
lution. 

The men were gone but a few moments, 


52 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

and came back with satisfied looks on their 
faces. 

“ I have learned,” said the lawyer, ad- 
dressing Tom, in a voice laden with appar- 
ent sympathy, “ that you have a younger 
brother who is blind. That is a sad afflic- 
tion.” 

“ Yes, indeed it is,” replied Tom ; “ yes, 
indeed ! ” 

“ I have learned, also, that there is a 
possibility of cure, if the eyes are subjected 
to proper and timely treatment.” 

“Yes, that’s what a doctor told us.” 

“ What a blessing it would be if sight 
could be restored to him ! what a delight ! 
What rejoicing there would be in your 
little household, would there not ? ” 

“ Oh, indeed there would ! ” cried Tom, 
“oh, indeed! It’s what we’re a-thinkin’ of 
al’ays ; it’s what I pray for every night, 
sir. We’ve been a-tryin’ to save money 
enough to do it, but it’s slow a-gettin’ it, 
it’s awful slow.” 

“A — how much ” — Lawyer Pleadwell 
paused, and twirled his eye-glasses thought- 
fully — “ how much would it cost, Tom ? ” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 53 

“ Only a hundred dollars, sir ; that’s 
what the doctor said.” 

Another pause ; then, with great deliber- 
ation, — 

“ Tom, suppose my friend here should 
see fit to place in your hands, to-day, the 
sum of one hundred dollars, to be used in 
your brother’s behalf ; could you return the 
favor by keeping to yourself the knowledge 
you possess concerning the origin of the 
fire at the breaker ? ” 

The hot blood surged up into Tom’s 
face, his heart pounded like a hammer 
against his breast, his head was in a whirl. 

A hundred dollars ! and sight for Ben- 
nie ! No lies to be told — only to keep 
quiet — and sight for Bennie! Would it 
be very wrong ? But, oh, to think of Ben- 
nie in the joy of seeing ! The temptation 
was terrible. Stronger, less affectionate 
natures than Tom’s might well have 
yielded. 


54 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


CHAPTER III. 

THE UNQUIET CONSCIENCE. 

And Tom yielded. 

The whisperings of conscience were 
drowned in the anticipation of Bennie’s 
joy. The fear of personal violence would 
not have conquered him ; neither would 
the fallacious argument of compensation by 
destruction have done so. But that vision 
of Bennie, with eyes that could look into 
his eyes, with eyes that could see the 
houses and the breakers, the trees and the 
birds and the flowers, that could even see 
the far-off stars in the sky at night, — that 
was the vision that crowded out from 
Tom’s mind the sharp distinction between 
right and wrong, and delivered him over 
wholly to the tempter. 

But he felt the shame of it, neverthe- 
less, as he answered, in a choking voice, at 
last, — 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


55 


“ Yes, I could. A hundred dollars ’d 
give sight to Bennie. I wouldn’t lie for it, 
but I’ll keep still for it.” 

Lawyer Pleadwell doubled up his glasses, 
slipped them into a morocco case, and 
slipped the case into his vest-pocket. His 
object was accomplished. 

“ Tom,” he said, “ you’re a wise lad. If 
you keep on in this way, you’ll make a 
lawyer ; and a lawyer, with so evenly 
balanced a conscience as yours, will be a 
credit to the profession.” 

Tom was not quite sure whether this was 
intended for a compliment or not, so he 
simply said, “ Yes, sir.” 

Pleadwell reached across the table for 
his high silk hat, motioned to Carolan to 
follow him, and went out, saying to Tom 
as he went, — 

“ You stay here and amuse yourself ; 
we’ll be back shortly.” 

Tom sat there alone quite still. His 
mind was in a tumult. Is it right? Is 
it right? Some unseen presence kept 
crowding the question in upon him. 

What would Bennie say to it ? 


56 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


What would Mommie say to it ? 

Yet there were no lies to be told ; he 
was simply to hold his tongue. 

But was it not shielding a criminal from 
just punishment? Was it not virtually 
selling his honor for money? Would it 
not be better, after all, to take back his 
promise, to do his duty fearlessly, and to 
work and wait, patiently and with a clear 
conscience, for means to accomplish the 
desire of his heart for Bennie ? 

He was just getting into a state of pain- 
ful indecision when Carolan came in along, 
and closed the door carefully behind him. 
Without saying a word, he handed to Tom, 
one by one, ten crisp, new ten-dollar bills. 
The boy had never in his life before seen 
so much money at one time. To hold it 
was like a scene in a fairy story ; to own it 
was to be rich beyond belief. The whis- 
pers of conscience were again stilled in the 
novelty of possessing wealth with which 
such blessings might be bought. 

Tom took the money, folded it awk- 
wardly, and placed it in the inside pocket 
of his vest. Carolan looked on with ap- 


\ 





\ 









THE BLIND BROTHER . 59 

parent satisfaction ; then went and seated 
himself in the chair he had formerly occu- 
pied, without having uttered a word. 

This man was a marked character in the 
anthracite coal region twenty years ago. 
He was known among the miners as 
“ Silent Mike,” was credited with much 
native ability and sharpness, and was gen- 
erally believed to be at the head, in the 
anthracite region, of the secret order of 
Molly Maguires. He was always shrewd 
enough not to implicate himself in any 
lawlessness. The fact that he so controlled 
the organization as to meet his personal 
ends caused it, eventually, to be split with 
internal dissensions. Then, as a new reign 
of law and order came in, and as organized 
labor began to base itself on higher princi- 
ples, and to work out its problem with less 
of vengeance and more of justice, the 
order gradually passed out of existence. 

Thinking there was nothing more to be 
said or done, Tom rose to go ; but just 
then Pleadwell entered, laid his silk hat 
carefully on the table, and motioned to him 
to be seated. Having taken his eye-glasses 


6o 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


from their case and adjusted them care- 
fully on his nose, he said to Tom, — 

“ It will not be wise for you to make 
any large expenditures of money for any 
purpose until after the trial ; and in the 
mean time it will be absolutely unsafe for 
you to disclose to any one the fact of your 
having money or the means by which it 
was obtained. Your own discretion will 
teach you this. You understand me, do 
you not?” 

Tom nodded, and Pleadwell continued : 

“ There is one thing more that I desire 
to speak of : I have heard that when you 
reached the foot of the hill on the night 
the breaker was burned, you saw a man 
come from near the point where the fire 
broke out, pass by you in the shadow of the 
building, and disappear around the corner 
by the engine-room. Is this true ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ What kind of a looking man was this ? 
Describe him.” 

“ He was a short man,” Tom replied, 
“ kind o’ slim, an’ he didn’t have any 
whiskers ” — a sudden thought ‘ seemed 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


6 1 


to strike the boy, and looking for a 
moment earnestly at Carolan, and then 
pointing his finger at him, he exclaimed, — 

“Why, he looked just like — just like 
him ! ” 

Carolan smiled ’grimly, but Pleadwell 
laughed aloud. 

“ Well, Tom,” he said, “ we shall not ask 
you to tell whom he looks like, but if I 
should require your presence at the trial, 
and should call you to the witness-stand, 
you would have no objection, I presume, 
to giving a description of the man you saw 
pass by you in the shadow of the breaker, 
just as you have described him to me ? ” 

“ No,” replied Tom, “ not so long as it’s 
true.” 

“ Oh, I should expect you to say noth- 
ing that is not strictly true,” said Pleadwell. 
“ I would not allow a witness of mine to 
tell a lie. Well, then, you are to be in the 
court-room here a week from next Tuesday 
morning at nine o’clock. Do you under- 
stand ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Carolan, put Thomas Taylor’s name on 


62 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


that subpoena. You will consider yourself 
subpoenaed, Tom. Now,” taking a heavy 
gold watch from his fob-pocket and glan- 
cing at it, “ you will have just time to catch 
the train north.” Then stepping to the 
door between the two rooms, and throwing 
it open, he said, “ Harris, go to the station 
with this boy, buy his ticket, and see that 
he gets the right train.” 

Harris was the young man who came 
down with Tom, and he and the boy were 
soon on the street together, walking briskly 
toward the station. 

An hour earlier, when they were coming 
in, Tom had been very talkative and in- 
quiring, but now his companion was able 
to get from him no more than a simple 
“ yes” or “ no,” and that only in answer to 
questions. 

Conversation was impossible to the boy, 
with his mind so crowded with perplexing 
doubts. He could not even take notice 
of the shop-windows, or of the life in the 
streets, but followed blindly along by 
the side of Harris. Somehow he felt as 
though he were walking under a heavy 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 63 

weight, and that roll of money in his 
pocket seemed to be burning him where 
it rested against his breast. He imagined 
that the people he met looked at him sus- 
piciously, as if they knew he had been 
bribed — bribed ! 

The word came into his mind so sud- 
denly, and with such startling force, that he 
stopped still in the street, and only recov- 
ered himself when Harris turned and called 
to him. 

They were just in time for the train. 

Tom found a place in the corner of the 
car where he would be alone, and sat there 
thinking over what he had done, and try- 
ing to reason himself into justification of 
his conduct. 

The conductor came along and punched 
his ticket, and looked at him so sharply 
that Tom wondered if he knew. But of 
course that was absurd. Then he tried 
to dismiss the matter from his mind alto- 
gether, and give his attention to what he 
could see from the car-window. 

Outside a drizzling rain was beginning 
to fall on the brown fields and leafless trees, 


6 4 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


and the autumn early twilight was fast 
deepening into darkness. It was very 
dismal and cheerless, and not at all the 
kind of outlook that could serve to draw 
Tom’s mind fro‘m its task of self-contem- 
plation. It was but a few minutes, there- 
fore, before this controversy with him- 
self was going on again, harder than 
before. 

Somehow that strange word “bribed” 
kept haunting him. It sounded constantly 
in his ears. He imagined that the people 
in the cars were speaking it ; that even the 
rhythmic rattle of the wheels upon the rails 
kept singing it to him with monotonous 
reiteration, “Bribed! bribed !” 

Tom thought, as he hurried down the 
street in the gathering darkness, out upon 
the plank walk, and up the long hill toward 
home, that he had never been so unhappy 
in all his life before. It was strange, too, 
for he had so often dreamed of the great 
joy he should feel when the coveted hun- 
dred dollars had been saved. 

Well, he had it now, every cent of it, 
rolled up and tucked safely away in the 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 65 

pocket of his vest ; but instead of happi- 
ness, it had brought misery. 

For the first time within his memory, the 
thought of meeting his mother and his 
brother gave him no pleasure. He would 
not tell them about the money that night 
at any rate ; he had decided upon that. 
Indeed, he had almost concluded that it 
would be better that they should not know 
about it until after the trial. And then 
suppose they should not approve ! He 
was aghast at the very thought. 

But Tom was a brave lad, and he put on 
a bright face before these two, and told 
them of his trip to Wilkesbarre, and about 
what he had seen and heard, — about the 
law-office, about Pleadwell and Carolan, 
about every thing, indeed, but the bargain 
and the money. 

He tried to eat his supper as if he en- 
joyed it, though every mouthful seemed 
about to choke him, and on the plea of 
being very tired, he went early to bed. 
There he lay half the night debating with 
his conscience, trying to make himself be- 
lieve that he had done right, yet feeling 


66 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


all the time that he had stooped to dis- 
honor. 

He went over in his mind the way in 
which he should break the news to Mommie 
and Bennie, and wondered how they would 
receive it ; and always beating upon his 
brain, with a regular cadence that followed 
the pulsation of his heart, and with a mo- 
notonous rhythm that haunted him even 
after he had fallen into a troubled sleep, 
went that terrible word, Bribed ! 


The autumn days went by, and still the 
strike continued. There were no siorns of 
resumption, no signs of compromise. On 
the contrary, the breach between the miners 
and the operators was growing daily wider. 
The burning of the Valley breaker and the 
arrest of Jack Rennie had given rise to 
a bitterness of feeling between the two 
classes that hindered greatly an amicable 
settlement of their differences. 

Acts of lawlessness were common, and 
it was apparent that but little provocation 
would be needed to bring on deeds of 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


67 


violence of a desperate nature. The cry 
of want began to be heard, and, as the 
winter season was drawing near, suffering 
became more frequent among the improvi- 
dent and the unfortunate. 

The Taylor family saw coming the time 
when the pittance of twenty dollars that 
the boys had saved for Bennie must be 
drawn upon to furnish food and clothing 
for them all. Tom had tried to get work 
outside of the mines, but had failed ; there 
were so many idle men and boys, and 
there was so little work to be done at that 
season of the year. But the district school 
was open, not far from his home, and Tom 
went there instead. 

He was fond of books, and had studied 
much by himself. He could read very well 
indeed. He used to read aloud to Bennie 
a great deal, and during these days of 
enforced idleness the boys occupied much 
of their time in that way; finding their 
literature in copies of old newspapers 
which had been given to them, and in a 
few old books which had belonged to their 
father. 


68 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


Indian Summer came late that year, but 
it was very fair. It lingered day after day, 
with its still air, its far-sounding echoes, its 
hazy light and its smoky distances ; and 
the brooding spirit of nature’s quiet rested 
down, for a brief but beautiful season, 
about the unquiet spirits of men. 

On the afternoon of one of its most 
charming days, Tom and Bennie sauntered 
out, hand in hand, as they always went, to 
where the hill, south of their little mining 
village, rose like a huge, upturned bowl, 
sloping downward from its summit to every 
point of the compass. Over in the little 
valley to the south lay the ruins of the 
burned breaker, still untouched ; and off 
upon the other side, one could see the 
sparkling Susquehanna far up into the nar- 
row valley where its waters sweep around 
the base of Campbell’s Ledge ; across to 
the blue mountains on the west ; and down 
the famous valley of Wyoming, with its 
gray stone monument in the middle dis- 
tance, until the eastern hills crept in to 
intercept the view. 

It was a dreamy day, and a day fit for 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 69 

dreams, and when the boys reached the 
summit of the hill, Tom lay down upon 
the warm sod, and silently looked away to 
the haze-wrapped mountains, while Bennie 
sat by his side, and pictured to his mind 
the view before him, as Tom had described 
it to him many times, sitting in that very 
spot. 

Poor Tom ! These beautiful days had 
brought to him much perplexity of mind, 
much futile reasoning with his conscience, 
and much, very much, of silent sub 
fering. 

Lying there now, in the sunlight, with 
open eyes, he saw, in reality, no more of 
the beautiful scene before him than did 
blind Bennie at his side. He was thinking 
of the trial, now only three days distant, 
of what he should be called upon to do 
and to say, and of how, after it was all 
over, he must tell Mommie and Bennie 
about the hundred dollars. 

Ah, there was the trouble ! he could see 
his way clearly enough until it should come 
to that ; but how should he ever be able to 
tell to these two a thing of which he tried 


70 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


to be proud, but of which, after all, he felt 
guilty and ashamed ? 

Then, what would they say to him ? 
Would they praise him for his devotion to 
Bennie, and for his cleverness in having 
grasped an opportunity? Or would they 
grieve over his lack of manly firmness and 
his loss of boyish honor ? Alas ! the more 
he thought of it, the more he feared that 
they would sorrow rather than rejoice. 

But an idea came to Tom, as he lay 
there, thinking the matter over ; the idea 
that perhaps he could learn what Bennie’s 
mind would be on the subject, without 
exciting any suspicion therein of what had 
actually occurred. He resolved to try. 

He hardly knew how best to approach 
the matter, but, after some consideration, 
he turned to Bennie and said, — 

“ Bennie, do you s’pose Jack Rennie 
act’ally set fire to that breaker ? ” 

“ I shouldn’t wonder a bit, Tom,” replied 
Bennie ; “ those ’at know him says he’s 
dreadful bad. ’Taint so much worse to 
burn a breaker than ’tis to burn a shaft- 
house, an’ they say he act’ally did burn a 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


71 


shaft-house up at Hyde Park, only they 
couldn’t prove it on him.” 

“ Well, s’pose you’d ’a’ seen — s’pose you 
could see, you. know, Bennie — an’ s’pose 
you’d ’a’ seen Jack Rennie set fire to that 
breaker ; would you tell on him ? ” 

“Yes, I would,” said Bennie, resolutely, 
“ if I thought he’d never get punished for 
it ’less I did tell on him.” 

“ Well, don’t you think,” continued Tom, 
reflectively, “ ’at that’d be sidin’ with the 
wealthy clapitulist , against the poor laborer, 
who ain’t got no other way to get even 
justice for himself, except to make the rich 
corpurations afraid of him, that way?” 

Tom was using Pleadwell’s argument, 
not because he believed in it himself, 
but simply to see how Bennie would 
meet it. 

Bennie met it by saying, — 

“Well, I don’t care ; I don’t b’lieve it’s 
ever right to burn up any thing ’at belongs 
to anybody else ; an’ if I saw any one 
a-doin’ it, I’d tell on him if” — Bennie 
hesitated a -moment, and Tom looked up 
eagerly — “if I wasn’t afraid o’ the Molly 


7 2 


THE BLIND B BOTHER. 


Maguires. Jack Rennie’s a Molly, you 
know.” 

“ But wouldnt you be afraid of ’em ? 
s’pose one of ’em should come to you an’ 
say, ‘ Ben Taylor, if you tell on Jack, we’ll 
put out your ’ — I mean ‘ cut off your 
tongue.’ What’d you do ? ” 

Bennie thought a moment. 

“ Well, I b’lieve I’d tell on him, anyway ; 
an’ then I’d get a pistol, an’ I wouldn’t let 
no Molly get nearer to me’n the muzzle of 
it.” 

In spite of his great anxiety, Tom laughed 
at the picture of weak, blind little Bennie 
holding a crowd of outlaws at bay, with a 
cocked revolver in his hand. But he felt 
that he was not getting at the real question 
very fast, so he tried again. 

“ Well, Bennie, s’pose you’d ’a’ seen 
him start that fire, an’ he’d ’a’ knowed it, 
an’ he’d ’a’ said to you, ‘ Ben Taylor, if you 
ever tell on me, I’ll burn your Mommie’s 
house down, an’ I’ll most kill your brother 
Tom ! ’ then what’d you do ? ” 

Bennie hesitated. This was more of a 
poser. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


73 


“ Well,” he answered, at last, “ if I’d a’ 
b’lieved he’d ’a’ done what he said — I 
don’t know — I guess I’d — well, maybe, if 
I didn’t have to tell any lie, I just wouldn’t 
say any thing.” 

Tom’s spirits rose ; he felt that a great 
point was gained. Here was a matter in 
which Bennie would have been even less 
firm than he himself had been. Now was 
the time to come directly to the issue, to 
ask the final question. 

Tom braced himself to the task. He 
tried to speak naturally and carelessly, but 
there was a strange shortness of breath, 
and a huskiness in his voice which he 
could not control ; he could only hope that 
Bennie would not notice it. 

“Well, then, s’pose — just s’pose, you 
know — that I'd seen Jack Rennie set fire 
to the breaker, an’ ’at he knew I was goin’ 
to tell on him, an’ ’at he’d ’a’ said to me, 
‘ Tom, you got a blind brother Bennie, ain’t 
you ? ’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘ Yes,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, 
‘ What’ll it cost to get Bennie’s sight for 
him ? ’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘ Oh, maybe a hun- 
dred dollars,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, ‘ Here, Tom, 


74 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


here’s a hundred dollars ; you go an’ get 
Bennie’s eyes cured ; an’ don’t you say 
any thin’ about my settin’ that fire.’ What 

— what’d you ’a’ done if you’d ’a’ been 
me ? ” 

Tom raised himself to a sitting posture, 
and leaned toward Bennie, with flushed face 
and painful expectancy in his eyes. 

He knew that for him Bennie’s answer 
meant either a return to a measure of the 
old happiness, or a plunging into deeper 
misery. 

The blind boy rose to his feet and stood 
for a moment as if lost in thought. Then 
he turned his sightless eyes to Tom, and 
said, very slowly and distinctly, — 

“ If you’d ’a’ took it, Tom, an’ if you’d 
’a’ used it to cure me with, an’ I’d ’a’ known 
it, an’ I’d ’a’ got my sight, I don’t believe 

— I don’t believe I should ever ’a’ wanted 
to look at you, Tom, or wanted you to see 
me ; I’d ’a’ been so ’shamed o’ both of us.” 



THE BLIND BROTHER. 


77 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE TRIAL. 

Tom turned his head away, and covered 
his face with his hands. This was cruel. 
For the first time in his life, he was glad 
Bennie could not see him. But he felt 
that it was necessary for him to say some- 
thing, so he stammered out, — 

“ Well, I was only just s’posin’, you 
know. Course, no honest fellow’d do that; 
but if they’ll only get to work again, we 
won’t ask anybody for any hunderd dollars. 
We’ll earn it.” 

The beauty of the autumn day died 
slowly out, and the narrow crescent of the 
new moon, hangingover the tops of the far 
western hills, shone dimly through the 
purple haze. Sadly and with few words 
the two boys went their homeward way. 
A great burden of regret and remorse 


78 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


rested upon Tom’s heart, and the shadow 
of it fell upon the heart of his blind 
brother. 

Poor, poor Tom ! He knew not what to 
do. He could never use the money now for 
Bennie, and he would not use it for him- 
self. It had occurred to him once to take 
the money back to Pleadwell, and seek to 
be released from his agreement. But a 
little thought had convinced him that this 
would be useless ; that the money would 
not be received ; that, having accepted a 
bribe, he had placed himself in the power 
of those who had given it to him, and that 
any wavering on his part, much more any 
violation of his agreement, would bring 
down vengeance and punishment on him- 
self, and trouble and disgrace on those who 
were dear to him. 

“ Oh, why,” he asked himself, in bitter 
thought, “why did I ever take the money?” 

Tom’s mother attributed his melancholy 
to lack of work and loss of earnings. She 
knew how his heart was set on laying up 
money to send Bennie away, and how im- 
patient he became at any delay in the prog- 


r 6iTr^ 



THE BLIND BROTHER. 


8l 


ress of his scheme. So she talked to him 
very cheerfully, and made delicate little 
dishes to tempt his appetite, and when the 
morning for the trial came, and Tom started 
for the train to go to Wilkesbarre, dressed 
in his best clothes, and with the hated 
hundred dollars burning in his pocket, she 
kissed him good-by with a smile on her 
face. She bade him many times to be very 
careful about the cars, and said to him, at 
parting, “ Whatever tha says to thee, lad, 
tell the truth ; whatever tha does to thee, 
tell the truth ; fear to look no man i’ the 
eye ; be good an’ honest wi’ yoursel’, an’ 
coom back to Mommie an’ Bennie, when 
it’s ower, hearty an’ week” 

Sandy McCulloch went down with Tom 
on the train, and together they walked from 
the station to the Court House. There 
were many people standing about in the 
Court-House Square, and in the corridors 
of the building, and the court-room itself 
was nearly full when Tom and Sandy en- 
tered it. They found vacant places on 
one of the rear benches, but, as the seats 
were all graded down on a sloping floor to 


82 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


the bar, they could see without difficulty all 
that was being done. 

Tom had never been in a court-room 
before, and he looked with much interest 
at the judges on the bench, at the lawyers 
chatting pleasantly in the bar, at the entry 
and departure of the grand jury, and at 
the officious constables, each with his staff 
of office, who kept order in the court-room. 

There were some motions and argu- 
ments which Tom could not understand, 
being made by the attorneys ; the clerk 
read some lists in a weak voice, and the 
time of the court was thus occupied until 
toward noon. 

By and by there was a slight bustle at 
the side door, to the right of the judges’ 
bench, and the sheriff and his deputy en- 
tered with Jack Rennie. 

Head and shoulders above those who 
accompanied him, his heavily bearded face 
somewhat pale from confinement, and 
stooping rather more than usual, he moved 
slowly across the crowded bar, in full view 
of all the people in the room, to a seat by 
the side of his counsel. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


83 


The instant Tom’s eyes rested on him 
he recognized him as the man who had 
threatened him at the breaker on the night 
of the fire. The buzz of excitement, oc- 
casioned by the entrance of the prisoner, 
subsided, and the voice of the presiding 
judge sounded distinctly through the 
room : 

“ Commonwealth against Jack Rennie. 
Arson. Are you ready for trial ? ” . 

“ We are, your Honor,” replied the 
district attorney, rising to his feet and 
advancing to the clerk’s desk. 

“ Very well,” said the judge. “ Arraign 
the prisoner.” 

Rennie was directed to stand up, and 
the district attorney read, in a clear voice, 
the indictment, which charged that the 
defendant “ did, on the eighteenth day of 
November last passed, feloniously, wil- 
fully and maliciously set fire to, burn and 
consume, a certain building, to wit : a coal- 
breaker, the same being the property of a 
certain body corporate known by the style 
and title of ‘ The Valley Coal Company ; ’ 
by reason of which setting fire to, burning 


84 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


and consuming, a certain dwelling-house, 
also the property of the said Valley Coal 
Company, and being within the curtilage 
of said coal-breaker, was also burned and 
consumed ; contrary to the form of the 
act of the General Assembly, in such case 
made and provided, and against the peace 
and dignity of the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania.” 

Rennie stood, listening intently to the 
reading of the indictment. When the 
question was put : 

“ What say you, — guilty, or not guilty ? ” 
he replied, in a deep, chest voice, — 

“ If I be guilty, ye ha’ but to prove it.” 

“ Make your plea, sir ! ” said the judge 
severely. “ Guilty, or not guilty ? ” 

“ Then I’ll plead no’ guilty. No mon’s 
guilty till he’s proved guilty.” 

Rennie resumed his seat, and the court 
was soon afterward adjourned for the noon 
recess. 

In the afternoon the selecting of jurors 
in the case against Rennie began. 

The first one called was a miner. One 
could tell that by the blue powder-marks 




























































































































































THE BLIND BROTHER. 87 

on his face, and that he was of Irish nativ- 
ity could be detected by the rich brogue 
that escaped his lips. He was “passed” 
by the Commonwealth, and the clerk of the 
court recited the formula : 

“ Juror, look upon the ‘prisoner. Pris- 
oner, look upon the juror. What say 
you, — challenge, or no challenge ? ” 

“ Swear the juror to ‘ true answers 
make,’ ” said Attorney Pleadwell. 

The man was sworn. 

“Where do you live?” inquired the 
lawyer. 

“ Up on Shanty Hill, sorr.” 

“ That’s definite. Anywhere near this 
breaker that was burned ? ” 

“ Oh, the matther of a mile belike, bar- 
rin’ the time it’d take ye to walk to the 
track beyant.” 

“ What’s your occupation ?” 

“Occupation, is it? Yis, sorr; as good 
a charracter as anny” — 

“ Oh, I mean what do you work at?” 

“ I’m a miner, sorr.” 

“ Where do you work ? ” 

“ Faith, I worked for the Valley Breaker 


88 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


Coal Company this tin years come next 
St. Patrick’s day, may it plase the coort, 
an’ bad ’cess to the man that burnt it, 
I say, an’ ” — 

“ Challenge ! ” interrupted Attorney 
Pleadwell, sharply. 

A tipstaff hurried the challenged man 
from the witness-box, in a state of helpless 
bewilderment as to what it all meant, and 
another juror was called, a small, wiry man, 
chewing on a mouthful of tobacco. He 
was sworn on his voir dire , and the dis- 
trict attorney asked him, — 

4i Do you belong to an organization 
known as the Molly Maguires ? ” 

“No, sir!” quickly responded the man, 
before Pleadwell could interpose an objec- 
tion to the question. 

The district attorney looked at the wit- 
ness sharply for a moment, then consulted 
with Attorney Summons, who sat by his 
side as private counsel for the prosecution. 
They believed that the man had sworn 
falsely, in order to get on the jury in behalf 
of the defendant, and he was directed to 
stand aside. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


89 


The next juror called was a farmer from 
a remote part of the county, who had heard 
nothing about the fire until he arrived in 
town, and who displayed no prejudices. 
He was accepted by both sides as the first 
juror in the case. 

So the selection went on, slowly and 
tediously, enlivened at times by an amusing 
candidate for the jury-box, or a tilt between 
counsel ; and long before the “ twelve good 
men and true ” had all been selected and 
sworn, the early autumn night had fallen, 
and the flaring gas-jets lighted up the 
space about the bench and bar, leaving 
the remote corners of the court-room in 
uncertain shadow. 

At six o’clock court was adjourned until 
the following morning, and Tom went, with 
Sandy McCulloch, to a small hotel on the 
outskirts of the city, where arrangements 
had been made to accommodate wit- 
nesses for the defence. Notwithstanding 
his anxiety of mind, Tom was hungry, 
and He ate a hearty supper and went 
early to bed. 

But he could not sleep. The excitement 


9 o 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


of the day had left his brain in a whirl, and 
he tossed restlessly about, going over in 
his mind what had already occurred, and 
thinking with grave apprehension of what 
to-morrow might bring forth. Through it 
all he still repeated one resolve : that what- 
ever came he would not lie. 

With this unsatisfactory compromise with 
his conscience on his mind, he fell at last 
into a troubled sleep. 

When court was opened on the follow- 
ing morning, the court-room was more 
densely crowded with idle men than it had 
been on the previous day. The case against 
Rennie was taken up without delay. The 
district attorney made the opening address 
on behalf of the Commonwealth, doing 
little more than to outline the evidence to 
be presented by the prosecution. 

The first witness called was a civil engi- 
neer, who presented a map showing the 
plan, location and surroundings of the 
burned breaker. Following him came two 
witnesses who detailed the progress bf the 
fire as they had seen it, one of them being 
the watchman at the breaker, and the other 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 9 1 

the occupant of the dwelling-house which 
had been burned. 

A third witness testified to having seen 
Rennie at the fire shortly after it broke out, 
but did not know how long he had been 
there, nor where he came from ; and still 
another swore that he had seen the defend- 
ant in a drinking-saloon in town, about 
half an hour before he heard the alarm of 
fire, and had noticed that he went away, in 
the direction of the breaker, in company 
with “ Silent Mike.” 

Then came a witness who gave his name 
as Lewis G. Travers ; a slightly built, but 
muscular man, of middle age, with sharp 
eyes and quiet manner. 

“What is your occupation?” inquired 
the district attorney, after the man had 
been sworn. 

“ I am a detective.” 

“ Do you know Jack Rennie, the defend- 
ant?” 

“ I do.” 

“ Where did you last see him ?” 

“ At a meeting, in Carbondale, of certain 
members of the order of Molly Maguires.” 


92 


TITE BLIND BROTHER. 


“ Are you a member of that order ? ” 

“ I have been.” 

“ Will you relate the circumstances at- 
tending your connection with it ? ” 

The stillness in the court-room was mar- 
vellous. On many an expectant face were 
mingled expressions of hate and fear, as 
the witness, with calm deliberation, related 
the thrilling story of how he had worked as 
a common laborer in the mines, in order to 
gain a standing with the lawless miners, 
and of how he had then been admitted to 
the order of Molly Maguires, arid had 
taken part in their deliberations. 

As a member of the executive board, he 
had been present, he said, at a secret meet- 
ing held in Carbondale, at which, on ac- 
count of the outspoken denunciation of the 
order, and the prompt dismissal of men be- 
longing to it, by the owners of the Valley 
Breaker, it was resolved to visit them with 
vengeance, in the shape of fire ; that Jack 
Rennie was selected to carry out the reso- 
lution, and that Rennie, being present, had 
registered a solemn oath to do the bidding 
of the order. 


THE BUND BROTHER . 


93 


This was the substance of his testimony, 
and though the cross-examination, by 
Pleadwell, was sharp, rigid and severe, the 
effect of the evidence could not be broken. 

At this point the Commonwealth rested. 
The case against Rennie had assumed a 
serious phase. Unless he could produce 
some strong evidence in his favor, his con- 
viction was almost assured. 

Pleadwell rose to open the case for the 
defence. After some general remarks on 
the unfairness of the prosecution, and the 
weakness of the detective’s story, he de- 
clared that they should prove, in behalf of 
the defendant, that he was not at or near 
the breaker until after the fire was well 
under way, and that the saving of a large 
portion of the company’s loose property 
from destruction was due to his brave and 
energetic efforts. 

“ Furthermore,” continued Pleadwell, 
earnestly, “ we shall present to the court 
and jury a most irreproachable witness, who 
will testify to you that he was present and 
saw this fire kindled, and that the man who 
kindled it was not Jack Rennie.” 


94 


THE BUND BROTHER. 


There was a buzz of excitement in the 
court-room as Pleadwell resumed his seat ; 
and Tom’s heart beat loudly as he under- 
stood the significance of the lawyer’s last 
statement. He felt, more than ever, the 
wrong, the disgrace, the self-humiliation 
to which he should stoop, by giving his 
testimony in support of so monstrous a 
lie. 

But what could he do ? The strain on 
his mind was terrible. He felt an almost 
irresistible desire to cry out, there, in the 
crowded court-room, that he had yielded 
to temptation for the sake of blind Bennie ; 
that he had seen the folly and the wicked- 
ness, and known the awful misery of it 
already ; that the money that bought him 
was like rags in his sight ; and that his own 
guilt and cowardice should save this crimi- 
nal no longer from the punishment which 
his crime deserved. 

By a strong effort, he repressed his 
emotion, and sat, with face flushed and 
pallid by turns, waiting for the time when 
his wretched bargain should be fulfilled. 

The first witness called on the part of 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 95 

the defence was Michael Carolan, better 
known as “ Silent Mike.” 

He testified that Rennie came down 
from Scranton with him and a body of 
strikers on the morning of November 18 ; 
that they ate supper with Carolan’s mar- 
ried sister, who lived in the village, just 
beyond the burned breaker ; that they 
spent the evening at a miners’ mass-meet- 
ing in town, and afterwards called at a 
drinking-saloon ; and that they were on 
the way back to his sister’s house, for the 
night, when they heard the cry of “ Fire ! ” 

“ At this time,” continued Carolan, “ Jack 
and me were together at the crossin’ on 
Railroad Street, maybe a quarter of a mile 
away from the breaker, an’ whin we heard 
the alarm, we looked up the track an’ saw 
the blaze, an’ Jack says, says he, ‘ Mike, the 
breaker’s a-fire,’ an’ I says, says I, ‘ It is, 
sure ; ’ an’ with that we both ran up the 
track toward the fire. 

“ Whin we were most there we met 
Sandy McCulloch cornin’ from the hill 
beyant, an’ me an’ him an’ Jack wint an’ 
shoved out the cars from the loadin’-place 


9 6 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


that we could get at ; an’ thin we wint to 
help with the furniture at the dwellin’- 
house, an’ we saved ivery thing we could.” 

Silent Mike had done well. Few people 
had ever before heard so many words come 
in succession from his lips, and he told his 
story with such impressive earnestness 
that it was easy to believe that he spoke 
the truth. Indeed, there was very little 
in his account of the occurrence that was 
not strictly in accordance with the facts. 
He had simply omitted to state that he 
and Rennie had gone, first, up to the 
breaker and kindled the blaze, and then 
returned, hastily, to the crossing where 
they certainly were when the first cry of 
“ Fire ! ” was heard. 

Rennie’s case was looking up. There 
was a recess for dinner, and, when court 
was re-opened, Sandy McCulloch was put 
on the witness-stand. 

He was just getting into bed, he said, 
when he heard the cry of “ Fire ! ” He 
looked out and saw that the breaker was 
burning, and, hurrying on his clothes, he 
ran down the hill. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


97 


“ When I cam’ to the fit o’ the hill,” he 
continued, in answer to Pleadwell’s ques- 
tion, “ I heard some’at behin’ me, an’ I 
lookit aroun’, an’ there I see Jack the 
Giant an’ Silent Mike a-speedin’ up the 
track toward the breaker. 

“ The fire was a-burnin’ up brisk by 
then, an’ me an’ Jack an’ Mike, we went 
an’ pushit some cars out fra the loadin’- 
place, down the track ; an’ then we savit 
a bit fra the dwellin’-house, an’ a bit fra 
the engine-room, an’ a bit here an’ there, 
as we could ; an’ Jack, he workit like a’ 
possessed, he did, sir ; sure he did.” 

“ What were you doing up so late at 
night ? ” was the first question put to 
Sandy on cross-examination. 

“ Well, you see, sir, a bit o’ a lad that 
works i’ the mines wi’ us, he had lost his 
brither i’ the slope the day, he had ; an’ I 
gied him a promise to help seek him oot 
gin he cam’ i’ the evenin’ to say as the lad 
was no’ foond ; an’ I was a-waitin’ up for 
him, min’ ye,” 

“Well, did the lad come?” inquired 
Lawyer Summons, somewhat sarcastically. 


9 8 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


“ He did that, an’ he tellit me as how 
he’d foond the brither, an’ leadit him hame, 
an’ would na want me ; an’ I said ‘ good- 
nicht’ till the lad, an’ started to bed, an’ 
the clock struckit eleven.” 

“ Who was the lad that came to your 
house ? ” 

“ Tom Taylor, sir.” 

Rennie started in his seat as the name 
was spoken, and the blood mounted into 
his pale forehead as he gazed intently at 
the witness. 

“ Did the boy go in the direction of the 
breaker from your house ? ” questioned 
Summons. 

“ He did, sir.” 

“ How long was it after he left you that 
you heard the cry of fire ? ” 

“Well, maybe the time o’ ten minutes.” 

“ Could the boy have got beyond the 
breaker ? ” 

“ He must ’a’, sir, he must ’a’ ; the grass 
was na growin’ under his feet goin’ doon 
the hill.” 

“ Do you think Tom Taylor fired that 
breaker ? ” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 99 

Sandy stared for a moment in blank 
amazement. 

“ Why, the guid Lord bless ye, mon ! be 
ye daft ? There ain’t a better boy i’ the 
roun’ warl’n Tom Taylor ! ” and Sandy 
broke into a hearty laugh at the very idea 
of Tom doing any thing wrong. 

But Tom, who sat back in his seat and 
heard it all, was suddenly startled with the 
sense of a new danger. Suppose he should 
be charged with setting fire to the breaker? 
And suppose Rennie and Carolan should 
go upon the witness-stand and swear that 
they saw him running away from the newly 
kindled blaze, as, indeed, they might and 
not lie, either, — how could he prove his 
innocence ? Yet he was about to swear 
Jack Rennie into freedom, knowing him to 
be guilty of the crime with which he was 
charged, and, what was still more despica- 
ble, he was about to do it for money. 

Looked upon in this light, the thing that 
Tom had promised to do rose very black 
and ugly in his sight ; and the poor delu- 
sion that he should tell no lie was swept, 
like a clinging cobweb, from his mind. 


IOO 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


It was while his heart was still throbbing 
violently under the excitement of this last 
thought and fear, that he heard some one 
call, — 

“ Thomas Taylor ! ” 

“ Here, sir,” responded Tom. 

“ Take the witness-stand.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


IOI 


CHAPTER V. 

THE VERDICT. 

Pale and trembling, Tom passed out 
into the aisle and down around the jury- 
box, and stepped upon the little railed 
platform. 

In impressive tones, the clerk adminis- 
tered to him the oath, and he kissed the 
Holy Bible and swore to “ tell the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” 

The whole truth ! 

The words echoed and re-echoed through 
his mind, as he looked down upon the 
lawyers and jurors, and across the bar into 
the hundreds of expectant faces turned 
toward him. For a moment he felt fright- 
ened and dizzy. 

But only for a moment ; fear gave place 
to astonishment, for Jack Rennie had 
started to his feet, with wild eyes and face 


102 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


blanched with sudden dread, and, bending 
over till his great beard swept Pleadwell’s 
shoulder, he whispered, hoarsely, into the 
lawyer’s ear, in a tone audible throughout 
the room, — 

“ Ye did na tell me who the lad was ! 
He mus’ na be sworn ; it’s na lawfu’. I’ll 
no’ have it ; I say I’ll no’ have it ! ” 

In another moment Pleadwell had his 
hand on the man’s shoulder, and forced 
him into a seat. There was a whispered 
consultation of a few minutes between at- 
torney and client, and then, while Rennie 
sat with his eyes turned steadfastly away 
from the witness, his huge hand clutching 
the edge of the table, and the expression 
of nervous dread still on his face, Plead- 
well, calmly, as if there had been no in- 
terruption, proceeded with the examina- 
tion. 

He asked Tom about his residence and 
his occupation, and about how blind Ben- 
nie lost himself in the mines. With much 
skill, he carried the story forward to the 
time when Tom said good-night to Sandy, 
and started down the hill toward home. 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


103 


“ As you approached the breaker, did 
you see a man pass by you in the shadow ? ” 
“ I did,” replied Tom. 

“ About how far from you ? ” 

“ I don’t know ; ten feet, maybe.” 

“ Where did he go ? ” 

“Around the corner, by the engine-room.” 
“ From what point did he come ? ” 

“ From the loading-place.” 

“ How long after he left the loading-place 
was it that you saw the first blaze there ? ” 

“ Two or three minutes, maybe.” 

“ Did you see his face ? ” 

“ I did.” 

“ How did he look ? Describe him.” 

“ He was short and thin, and had no 
whiskers.” 

Pleadwell pointed to Rennie, and 
asked, — 

“ Was this the man ? ” 

“ No, sir,” answered Tom. 

Pleadwell leaned back in his chair, and 
turned to the jury with a smile of triumph 
on his face. The people in the court-room 
nodded to each other, and whispered, 
“ That clears Jack.” 


104 THE BLIND brother. 

Every one, but Jack Rennie himself, 
seemed to feel the force of Tom’s testi- 
mony. The prisoner still sat clutching the 
table, looking blankly at the wall, pale, 
almost trembling, with some suppressed 
emotion. 

But through Tom’s mind kept echoing 
the solemn words of his oath : “ The whole 
truth ; the whole truth'.' And he had not 
told it ; his testimony was no better than a 
lie. An awful sense of guilt came pressing 
in upon him from above, from below, from 
every side. Hateful voices seemed sound- 
ing in his brain: “Perjurer in spirit! 
Receiver of bribes ! ” 

The torture of his self-abhorrence, in 
that one moment of silence, was terrible 
beyond belief. 

Then a sudden impulse seized him ; a 
bright, brave, desperate impulse. 

He stepped down from the witness-stand, 
passed swiftly between chairs and tables, 
tearing the money from his breast-pocket 
by the way, and flinging the hated hundred 
dollars down before the astonished Plead- 
well, he returned as quickly as he came, 



















THE BLIND BROTHER. 107 

stepped into his place with swelling breast 
and flaming cheeks and flashing eyes, and 
exclaimed, falling, in his excitement, into 
the broad accent of his mother tongue, — 

. “ Noo I’m free ! Do what ye wull wi’ 
me ! Prison me, kill me, but I’ll no’ hold 
back the truth longer for ony mon, nor a’ 
the money that ony mon can gi’ me ! ” 

Men started to their feet in astonishment. 
Some one back among the people began 
to applaud. Jack Rennie turned his face 
toward the boy with a look of admiration, 
and his eyes were blurred with sudden 
tears. 

“ He’s the son o’ his father ! ” he ex- 
claimed ; “ the son o’ his father ! He’s a 
braw lad, an’ good luck till him, but it was 
flyin’ i’ the face o’ fortune to swear him. 
I told ye ! I told ye ! ” 

“Who gave you that money?” asked 
the district attorney of Tom, when quiet 
had been partially restored. 

Pleadwell was on his feet in an instant. 

“ Stop ! ” he shouted. “ Don’t answer 
that question ! Did I give you that 
money ? ” 


io8 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


“ No, sir,” replied Tom, awed by die 
man’s vehemence. 

“ Did Jack Rennie give you diat money?” 

“ No, sir.” 

Pleadwell turned to the court. 

“ Then if your Honors please, we object 
to the witness answering this question. 
This is a desperate theatrical trick, con- 
cocted by the prosecution to prejudice this 
defendant. We ask that they be not 
allowed to support it with illegal evidence.” 

The judge turned to Tom. 

“ Do you know,” he asked, “ that this 
money was given to you by the defendant’s . 
authority, or by his knowledge or consent?” 

“ I can’t swear that it was,” replied Tom. 

“ The objection is sustained,” said his 
Honor, abruptly. 

Pleadwell had gained a point ; he might 
yet win the day. But the district attorney 
would not loose his grip. 

“ Why did you just give that money to 
the attorney for the defence ? ” he asked. 

Pleadwell interposed another objection, 
but the court ruled that the question was 
properly in the line of cross-examination 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 109 

of the defendant’s witness, and Tom an- 
swered, — 

“ ’Cause I had no right to it, an’ he 
knows who it belongs to.” 

“ Whom does it belong to ? ” 

“ I don’t know, sir. I only know who 
gave it to me.” 

“ When was it given to you ? ” 

“ A week ago last Thursday, sir.” 

“ Where was it given to you ? ” 

“ In Mr. Pleadwell’s office.” 

“ Was Mr. Pleadwell present?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ How much money was given to you ? ” 

“ One hundred dollars, sir.” 

“ For what purpose was it given to 
you ? ” 

“ To send my blind brother away to get 
his sight.” 

“ I mean what were you to do in con- 
sideration of receiving the money ? ” 

Before Tom could answer, Pleadwell was 
addressing the court : 

“ I submit, your Honor,” he said, “ that 
this inquisition has gone far enough. I 
protest against my client being prejudiced 


I 10 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


by the unauthorized and irrelevant con- 
duct of any one.” 

The judge turned to the district attorney. 
“ Until you can more closely connect the 
defendant or his authorized agent,” he said, 
“ with the giving of this money, we shall 
be obliged to restrict you in this course of 
inquiry.” 

Pleadwell had made another point. He 
still felt that the case was not hopeless. 

Then Summons, the private counsel for 
the prosecution, took the witness. “Tom,” 
he said, “ did you tell the truth in your 
direct examination ? ” 

“ I did, sir,” replied Tom, “ but not the 
whole truth.” 

“Well, then, suppose you tell the rest 
of it.” 

“ I object,” interposed Pleadwell, “ to 
allowing this witness to ramble over the 
field of legal and illegal evidence at will. 
If counsel has questions to ask, let him ask 
them.” 

“ We will see that the witness keeps 
within proper limits,” said the judge; then, 
turning to Tom, “ Go on, sir.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


1 1 I 


“ Well, you see,” said Tom, “ it was all 
just as I told it ; only when I got to the 
bottom o’ the hill, an’ see that man go by 
me in the dark, I was s’prised like, an’ I 
stopped an’ listened. An’ then I heard a 
noise in under the loadin’-place, an’ then 
that man,” pointing his trembling fore- 
finger to Rennie, “ came out, a-kind o’ 
talkin’ to himself. An’ he said that was 
the last job o’ that kind he’d ever do; that 
they put it on him ’cause he hadn’t any- 
body to feel bad over him if he should get 
catched at it. 

“ An’ then I see a blaze start up right 
where he come from, an’ it got bigger an’ 
bigger. An’ then he turned an’ see me, 
an’ he grabbed me by the shoulders, an’ he 
said, ‘ Don’t you speak nor whisper, or I’ll 
take the life o’ ye,’ or somethin’ like that ; 
I can’t quite remember, I was so scared. 
An’ then he pushed me down the track, 
an’ he said, ‘ Run as fast as ever you can, 
an’ don’t you dare to look back.’ 

“ An’ I run, an’ I didn’t look back till 
the fire was a-burnin’ up awful ; an’ then I 
went with the rest to look at it ; an’ he 


I 12 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


was there, an’ a-workin’ desperate to save 
things, an’ — an’ — an’ that’s all.” 

Tom stopped, literally panting for breath. 
The jurors were leaning forward in their 
seats to catch every word, and over among 
the crowded benches, where the friends of 
the prisoner were gathered, there was a 
confused hum of voices, from which, now 
and then, rose angry and threatening words. 

Rennie sat gazing intently upon Tom, as 
though fascinated by the boy’s presence, 
but on his face there was no sign of dis- 
appointment or anger ; only the same look 
of admiration that had come there when 
Tom returned the money. 

He clutched Pleadwell’s sleeve, and said 
to him, — 

“ That settles it, mon ; that settles it. 
The spirit o’ the dead father’s i’ the lad, an’ 
it’s no use o’ fightin’ it. I’ll plead guilty 
noo, an’ end it, an’ talc ma sentence an’ 
stan’ it. How long’ll it be, think ye ? ” 

“ Twenty years in the Penitentiary,” an- 
swered Pleadwell, sharply and shortly. 

Rennie dropped back in his chair, as 
though the lawyer had struck him. 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


1 13 

“ Twenty years ! ” he repeated ; “ twenty 
years ! That’s a main lang time ; I canna 
stan’ that ; I canna live through it. I’ll no’ 
plead guilty. Do what ye can for me.” 

But there was little that Pleadwell could 
do now. His worst fears had been real- 
ized. He knew it was running a desperate 
risk to place on the witness-stand a boy 
with a conscience like Tom’s ; but he knew, 
also, that if he could get Tom’s story out 
in the shape he desired to, and keep back 
the objectionable parts, his client would go 
free ; and he had great faith in the power of 
money to salve over a bruised conscience. 

He had tried it and failed ; and ‘there 
was nothing to do now but make the best 
of it. 

He resumed his calm demeanor, and 
turned to Tom with the question, — 

“Did you ever tell to me the story you 
have just now told on the witness-stand, 
or any thing like it ? ” 

“ I never did,” answered Tom. 

“ Did you ever communicate to me, in 
any way, your alleged knowledge of Jack 
Rennie’s connection with this fire ? ” 


1 14 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

“ No, sir.” 

Pleadwell had established his own inno- 
cence, so far as Tom’s story was concerned 
at least, and he dismissed the boy from the 
witness-stand with a wave of his hand which 
was highly expressive of virtuous indigna- 
tion. m 

Tom resumed his seat by the side of 
Sandy, whose mouth and eyes were still 
wide open with surprise and admiration, 
and who exclaimed, as he gave the boy’s 
hand a hearty grip, — 

“ Weel done, Tommy, ma lad ! weel 
done ! I’m proud o’ ye ! an’ Bennie’n the 
mither’ll be prouder yet o’ ye ! ” 

And then, for the first time since the 
beginning of his trouble, Tom put his face 
in his hands and wept. But he felt that 
a great load had been lifted from his con- 
science, and that now he could look any 
man in the eye. 

There were two or three unimportant 
witnesses sworn in rebuttal and sur-rebut- 
tal, and the evidence was closed. 

Pleadwell rose to address the jury, feel- 
ing that it was a useless task so far as his 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 1 5 

client was concerned, but feeling, also, that 
he must exert himself to the utmost in 
order to rebut a strong presumption of 
questionable conduct on his own part. 

He denounced Tom’s action in returning 
the money to him as a dramatic trick, 
gotten up by the prosecution for effect ; 
and called particular attention to his own 
ignorance of the gift of any such money. 

He declared Tom’s story of his meeting 
with Rennie, on the night of the fire, to be 
improbable and false, and argued that since 
neither the prosecution, nor the defence, 
nor any one else, had ever heard one word 
of it till it came out on the witness-stand, 
it must, therefore, exist only in the lad’s 
heated imagination. 

He dwelt strongly on the probable 
falsity of the testimony of the so-called 
detective ; went over carefully the evi- 
dence tending to establish an alibi for 
Rennie ; spoke with enthusiasm of the 
man’s efforts and bravery in the work of 
rescue; lashed the corporations for their 
indifference to the wrongs of the working- 
men ; spoke piteously of the fact that the 


II 6 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

law denied to Rennie the right of being 
sworn in his own behalf ; and closed with 
a peroration that brought tears into the 
eyes of half the people in the room. 

He had made a powerful speech, and he 
knew it ; but he thought of its effect only 
. as tending to his own benefit ; he had no 
hope for Rennie. 

Mr. Summons addressed the jury on the 
part of the Commonwealth. He maintained 
that the evidence of the detective, taken in 
connection with all the other circumstances 
surrounding the case, was sufficient to have 
convicted the defendant, without further 
proof. 

“ But the unexpected testimony,” he de- 
clared, “ of one brave and high-minded boy 
has placed the guilt of the prisoner beyond 
the shadow of a doubt ; a boy whose great 
heart has caused him to yield to tempta- 
tion for the sake of a blind brother ; but 
whose tender conscience, whose heroic spirit, 
has led him to throw off the bonds which 
this defence has placed upon him, and, in 
the face of all the terrors of an order whose 
words are oaths of vengeance, and whose 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 117 

acts are deeds of blood, to fling their hated 
bribes at their feet, as they sat in the very 
court of justice ; and to ‘ tell the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ for 
the sake of his own honor and the uphold- 
ing of the law.” 

Warming up to his theme, and its pos- 
sibilities in the way of oratorical effect, 
Summons brought wit to bear upon logic, 
and logic upon law, and eloquence upon 
both, until, at the close of his address, the 
conviction of the defendant was all but 
certain, and Tom’s position as a hero was 
well assured. 

Then came the charge of the court ; 
plain, decisive, reviewing the evidence in 
brief, calling the attention of the jury to 
their duty both to the Commonwealth and 
to the defendant, directing them that the 
defendant’s guilt must be established, in 
their minds, beyond a reasonable doubt, 
before they could convict ; but that, if they 
should reach that point, then their verdict 
should be simply “ Guilty.” 

The jury passed out of the court-room, 
headed by a constable, after which counsel 


1 1 8 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

for the defendant filed exceptions to the 
charge, and the court proceeded to other 
business. 

Very few people left the court-room, as 
every one supposed it would not be long 
before the bringing in of a verdict, and 
they were not mistaken. It was barely 
half an hour from the time the jury retired 
until they filed back again, and resumed 
their seats in the jury-box. 

“ Gentlemen of the jury,” said the clerk 
of the court, rising, “ have you agreed upon 
a verdict ? ” 

“ We have,” replied the foreman, hand- 
ing a paper to a tipstaff, which he handed 
to the clerk ; and the clerk in turn handed 
it to the presiding judge. 

The judges, one after another, read the 
paper, nodded their approval, and returned 
it to the clerk, who glanced over its con- 
tents, and then addressed the jury as fol- 
lows : — 

“ Gentlemen of the jury, hearken unto 
your verdict as the court have it recorded. 
In the case wherein the Commonwealth is 
plaintiff and Jack Rennie is defendant, you 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


Il 9 


say you find the defendant guilty. So say 
you all ? ” 

The members of the jury nodded their 
heads, the clerk resumed his seat, and the 
trial of Jack Rennie was concluded. 

It was what every one had anticipated, 
and people began to leave the court-room, 
with much noise and confusion. 

Rennie was talking, in a low tone, with 
Pleadwell and Carolan, while the sheriff, 
who had advanced to take charge of the 
prisoner, stood waiting for them to con- 
clude the conference. 

“ I don’t want the lad harmed,” said 
Rennie, talking earnestly to Carolan, “ him, 
nor his mither, nor his brither ; not a hair 
o’ his head, nor a mou’-ful o’ his bread, 
noo min’ ye — I ha’ reasons — the mon 
that so much as lays a straw i’ the lad’s 
path shall suffer for’t, if I have to live a 
hunder year to talc’ ma vengeance o’ him!” 

The sonorous voice of the court-crier, 
adjourning the courts until the following 
morning, echoed through the now half- 
emptied room, and the sheriff said to 
Rennie, — 


120 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


“ Well, Jack, I’m waiting for you.” 

“ Then ye need na wait longer, for I’m 
ready to go wi’ ye, an’ I’m hungry too.” 
And Rennie held out his hands to receive 
the handcuffs which the sheriff had taken 
from his pocket. For some reason, they 
would not clasp over the man’s huge 
wrists. 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed the officer, “ I have 
the wrong pair. Simpson,” turning to his 
deputy, “ go down to my office and bring 
me the large handcuffs lying on my table.” 

Simpson started, but the sheriff called 
him back. 

“ Never mind,” he said, “ it won’t pay ; 
Jack won’t try to get away from us, will 
you, Jack ? ” drawing a revolver from his 
pocket as he spoke, and grasping it firmly 
in his right hand, with his finger on the 
trigger. 

“D’ye tak’ me for a fool, mon?” said 
Rennie, laughing, as he glanced at the 
weapon ; then, turning to Carolan and 
Pleadwell, he continued, “Good-nicht; 
good-nicht and sweet dreams till ye ! ” 
Jack had never seemed in a gayer mood 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


1 2 1 


than as he marched off through the side- 
door, with the sheriff and his deputy ; 
perhaps it was the gayety of despair. 

Carolan had not replied to the prisoner’s 
cheery “ good-nicht.” He had looked on 
at the action of the sheriff, with a curious 
expression in his eyes, until the trio started 
away, and then he had hurried from the 
court-room at a gait which made Pleadwell 
stare after him in astonishment. 

It was dark outside ; very dark. A 
heavy fog had come up from the river and 
enshrouded the entire city. The street- 
lamps shone but dimly through the thick 
mist, and a fine rain began to fall, as Tom 
and Sandy hurried along to their hotel, 
where they were to have supper, before 
going, on the late train, to their homes. 

Up from the direction of the court-house 
came to their ears a confusion of noises ; 
the shuffling of many feet, loud voices, 
hurried calls, two pistol-shots in quick suc- 
cession ; a huge, panting figure pushing 
by them, and disappearing in the fog and 
darkness ; by and by, excited men hurrying 
toward them. 


122 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


“What’s the matter?” asked Sandy. 

And some one, back in the mist, re- 
plied, — 

“ Jack Rennie has escaped ! ” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


123 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE FALL. 

It was true. Cardan’s quick eye had 
noticed the opportunity for Rennie to 
escape, and his fertile brain had been swift 
in planning an immediate rescue. The few 
members of his order that he could find on 
the instant were gathered together ; there 
was a sudden onslaught at a dark corner 
of the Court-House Square ; the sheriff 
and his deputy lay prone upon the ground, 
and their prisoner was slipping away 
through the dark, foggy streets, with a 
policeman’s bullet whizzing past his ears, 
and his band of rescuers struggling with 
the amazed officers. 

But the sheriff of Luzerne County never 
saw Jack Rennie again, nor was the hand 
of the law ever again laid upon him, in 
arrest or punishment. 


124 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

As Tom walked home from the railroad 
station that night through the drizzling 
rain, his heart was lighter than it had been 
for many a day. 

True, he was nervous and worn with 
excitement and fatigue, but there was with 
him a sense of duty done, even though 
tardily, which brought peace into his mind 
and lightness to his footsteps. 

After the first greetings were had, and 
the little home group of three was seated 
together by the fire to question and to talk, 
Tom opened his whole heart. While his 
mother and Bennie listened silently, often 
with tears, he told the story of his adven- 
ture at the breaker on the night of the fire, 
of his temptation and fall at Wilkesbarre, 
of his mental perplexity and acute suffer- 
ing, of the dramatic incidents of the trial, 
and of his own release from the bondage 
of bribery. 

When his tale was done, the poor blind 
brother, for whose sake he had stepped ihto 
the shadow of sin, and paid the penalty, 
declared/with laughter and with tears, that 
he had never before been so proud of Tom 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 25 

and so fond of him as he was at that 
moment ; and the dear, good mother took 
the big fellow on her lap, as she used to do 
when he was a little child, and held him up 
close to her heart, and rocked him till he 
fell asleep, and into his curly hair dropped 
now and then a tear, that was not the out- 
come of sorrow, but of deep maternal joy. 

It was well along in December before 
the strike came to an end. There had 
been rumors for a week of an approaching 
compromise between the miners and the 
operators, but one day there came word 
that all hands were to be at the mines, 
ready for work, the following morning. 

It was glad news for many a poor family, 
who saw the holidays approaching in 
company with bitter want ; and it brought 
especial rejoicing to the little household 
dependent so largely on the labor of Tom 
and Bennie for subsistence. 

The boys were at the entrance to the 
mine the next morning before the stars 
began to pale in the east. They climbed 
into a car of the first trip, and rode down 
the slope to the music of echoes roaring 


126 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


through galleries that had long been 
silent. 

The mules had been brought in the day 
before, and Tom ran whistling to the mine 
stables to untie his favorite Billy, and set 
him to his accustomed task. There came 
soon a half-dozen or more of driver-boys, 
and such a shouting and laughing and chat- 
tering ensued as made the beasts prick up 
their long ears in amazement. 

“ All aboard ! ” shouted Tom, as he fast- 
ened his trace-hook to the first trip of cars. 
“ Through train to the West ! No stops 
this side o’ Chicorgo ! ” 

“ ’Commodation ahead ! Parly cars on 
the nex’ train, an’ no porters ’lowed ! ” 
squeaked out a little fellow, backing his 
mule up to the second trip. 

“ I’ll poke the fire a bit an’ git the steam 
up fur yez,” said Patsey Donnelly, the 
most mischievous lad of them all. Where- 
upon he prodded Tom’s mule viciously in 
the ribs, and that beast began playing such 
a tattoo with his heels against the front of 
the car as drowned all other noises in its 
clatter. 










THE BLIND BROTHER. 


I29 


“ Whoa, Billy ! ” shouted Tom, helping 
Bennie into the rear car of the trip. 
“Whoa, now! Stiddy — there, git-tup!” 
cracking his long leather whip-lash over 
Billy’s ears as he spoke, and climbing into 
the front car. “Git-tup! Go it ! Whoop!” 

Away went Tom and Bennie, rattling up 
the long heading, imitating alternately the 
noise of the bell, the whistle, and the 
labored puffing of a locomotive engine ; 
while the sound-waves, unable to escape 
from the narrow passage which confined 
them, rolled back into their ears in volumes 
of resounding echoes. 

Ah, they were happy boys that morning! 
happy even though one was smitten with 
the desolation of blindness, and both were 
compelled to labor, from daylight to dark, 
in the grimy recesses of the mine, for the 
pittance that brought their daily bread ; 
happy, because they were young and free- 
hearted and innocent, and contented with 
their lot. 

And Tom was thrice happy, in that he 
had rolled away the burden of an accusing 
conscience, and felt the high pleasure that 


130 THE BUND BROTHER. 

nothing else on earth can so fully bring as 
the sense of duty done, against the frown- 
ing face and in the threatening teeth of 
danger. 

Sometimes, indeed, there came upon 
him a sudden fear of the vengeance he 
might meet at Rennie’s hands ; but as the 
days passed by this fear disturbed him less 
and less, and the buoyancy of youth pre- 
served him from depressing thoughts of 
danger. 

Billy, too, was in good spirits that morn- 
ing, and drew the cars rapidly along the 
heading, swinging around the sharp curves 
so swiftly that the yellow flame from the 
little tin lamp was blown down to the 
merest spark of blue ; and stopping at last 
by the door in the entrance, where Bennie 
was to dismount and sit all day at his 
lonely task. 

Three times Tom went down to the slope 
that morning, through Bennie’s door, with 
his trip of loads, and three times he came 
back, with his trip of lights ; and the third 
time he stopped to sit with his brother on 
the bench, and to eat, from the one pail 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 1 3 1 

which served them both, the plain but sat- 
isfying dinner which Mommie had prepared 
for them. 

Tom was still light-hearted and jovial, 
but upon Bennie there seemed to have 
fallen since morning a shadow of soberness. 
To sit for hours with only one’s thoughts 
for company, and with the oppressive 
silence broken only at long intervals by the 
passing trips, this alone is enough to cast 
gloom upon the spirits of the most cheerful. 

But something more than this was 
weighing upon Bennie’s mind, for he told 
Tom, when they had done eating, that 
every time it grew still around him, and 
there were no cars in the heading or air- 
way, and no noises to break the silence, he 
could hear, somewhere down below him, 
the “working” of the mine. He had heard 
it all the morning he said, when every 
thing was quiet, and, being alone so, it 
made him nervous and afraid. 

“ I could stan’ most any thing,” he said, 
“ but to get caught in a ‘ fall.’ ” 

“ Le’s listen an’ see if we can hear it 
now,” said Tom. 


132 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

Then both boys kept very quiet for a 
little while, and sure enough, over in the 
darkness, they heard an occasional snap- 
ping, like the breaking of dry twigs beneath 
the feet. 

The process which the miners call “work- 
ing ” was going on. The pressure of the 
overlying mass of rock upon the pillars of 
coal left to support it was becoming so 
great that it could not be sustained, and 
the gradual yielding of the pillars to this 
enormous weight was being manifested by 
the crackling noises that proceeded from 
them, and the crumbling of tiny bits of 
coal from their bulging surfaces. 

The sound of working pillars is fa- 
miliar to frequenters of the mines, and is 
the well-known warning which precedes 
a fall. The remedy is to place wooden 
props beneath the roof for additional sup- 
port, and, if this is not done, there comes 
a time, sooner or later, when the strained 
pillars suddenly give way, and the whole 
mass comes crashing down, to fill the gang- 
ways and chambers over an area as great 
as that through which the working ex- 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


133 


tended, and to block the progress of min- 
ing for an indefinite time. 

Tom had been too long about the mines 
to be ignorant of all this, and so had Ben- 
nie ; but they knew, too, that the working 
often continued weeks, and sometimes 
months, before the fall would take place, 
though it might, indeed, come at any 
moment. 

That afternoon Tom told the slope boss 
about the working, and he came and made 
an examination, and said he thought there 
was no immediate danger, but that he would 
give orders to have the extra propping of 
the place begun on the following day. 

“ Jimmie Travis said he seen rats goin’ 
out o’ the slope, though, when he come 
in,” said Tom, after relating to Bennie the 
opinion of the mine boss. 

“ Then ’twon’t be long,” replied Bennie, 
“ ’fore the fall comes.” 

He was simply echoing the belief of all 
miners, that rats will leave a mine in which 
a fall is about to take place. Sailors have 
the same belief concerning a ship about to 
sink. 


134 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


“ An’ when the rats begin to go out,” 
added Bennie, “ it’s time for men an’ boys 
to think about goin’ out too.” 

Somehow, the child seemed to have a 
premonition of disaster. 

The afternoon wore on very slowly, and 
Bennie gave a long sigh of relief when he 
heard Tom’s last trip come rumbling down 
the airway. 

“ Give me the dinner-pail, Bennie ! ” 
shouted Tom, as the door closed behind 
the last car, “an’ you catch on behind — 
Whoa, Billy ! ” as the mule trotted on 
around the corner into the heading. 

“ Come, Bennie, quick ! Give me your 
hand ; we’ll have to run to catch him 
now.” 

But even as the last word trembled on 
the boy J s lips, there came a blast of air, 
like a mighty wind, and in the next instant 
a noise as of bursting thunder, and a crash 
that shook the foundations of the mines, 
and the two boys were hurled helplessly 
against Bennie’s closed door behind them. 

The fall had come. 

The terrible roar died away in a series 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 35 

of rumbling echoes, and, at last, stillness 
reigned. 

“ Bennie ! ” 

It was Tom who spoke. 

“ Bennie ! ” 

He called the name somewhat feebly. 

“ Bennie ! ” 

It was a shout at last, and there was 
terror in his voice. 

He raised himself to his feet, and stood 
leaning against, the shattered frame-work 
of the door. He felt weak and dizzy. He 
was bruised and bleeding, too, but he 
did not know it ; he was not thinking of 
himself, but of Bennie, who had not an- 
swered to his call, and who might be dead. 

He was in total darkness, but he had 
matches in his pocket. He drew one out 
and stood, for a moment, in trembling 
hesitancy, dreading what its light might 
disclose. Then he struck it, and there, 
almost at his feet, lay his cap, with his lamp 
still attached to it. 

He lighted the lamp and looked farther. 

At the other side of the entrance, half- 
hidden by the wreck of the door, he saw 


136 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


Bennie, lying on his side, quite still. He 
bent down and flashed the light into Ben- 
nie’s face. As he did so the blind boy 
opened his eyelids, sighed, moved his 
hands, and tried to rise. 

“ Tom ! ” 

The word came in a whisper from his 
lips. 

“ Yes, Bennie, I’m here ; are you hurt ? ” 

“No — yes — I don’t know; what was 
it, Tom ? ” 

“ The fall, I guess. Can you get up ? 
Here, I’ll help you.” 

Bennie gained his feet. He was not 
much hurt. The door had given way 
readily when the boys were forced against 
it, and so had broken the severity of the 
shock. But both lads had met with some 
cuts and some severe bruises. 

“ Have you got a lamp, Tom ? ” 

“ Yes ; I just found it ; come on, let’s 
go home.” 

Tom took Bennie’s hand and turned to 
go out, but the first step around the pillar, 
into the heading, brought him face to face 
with a wall of solid rock which filled every 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


137 


inch of the passage. It had dropped, like 
a curtain, blotting out, in one instant, the 
mule and the cars, and forming an impassa- 
ble barrier to the further progress of the 
boys in that direction. 

“ We can’t get out this way,” said Tom ; 
“ we’ll have to go up through the airway.” 

They went back into the airway, and 
were met by a similar impenetrable mass. 

Then they went up into the short cham- 
bers beyond the airway, and Tom flashed 
the light of his lamp into every entrance, 
only to find it blocked and barred by the 
roof-rock from the fall. 

“ We’ll have to go back up the headin’,” 
said Tom, at last, “ an’ down through the 
old chambers, an’ out to the slope that 
way.” 

But his voice was weak and cheerless, 
for the fear of - a terrible possibility had 
grown up in his mind. He knew that, if 
the fall extended across the old chambers 
to the west wall of the mine, as was more 
than likely, they were shut in beyond hope 
of escape, perhaps beyond hope of rescue ; 
and if such were to be their fate, then it 


138 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

would have been far better if they were 
lying dead under the fallen rock, with Billy 
and the cars. 

Hand in hand the two boys went up the 
heading, to the first opening in the lower 
wall, and creeping over the pile of “ gob ” 
that partially blocked the entrance, they 
passed down into a series of chambers that 
had been worked out years before, from a 
heading driven on a lower level. 

Striking across through the entrances, in 
the direction of the slope, they came, at 
last, as Tom had expected and feared, to 
the line of the fall : a mass of crushed coal 
and broken rock stretching diagonally 
across the range of chambers towards the 
heading below. 

But perhaps it did not reach to that 
heading; perhaps the heading itself was 
still free from obstruction ! 

This was the only hope now left ; and 
Tom grasped Bennie’s hand more tightly 
in his, and hurried, almost ran, down the 
long, wide chamber, across the airway and 
into the heading. 

They had gone scarce twenty rods along 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 39 

the heading, when that cruel, jagged wall 
of rock rose up before them, marking the 
confines of the most cheerless prison that 
ever held a hopeless human being. 

When Tom saw it he stopped, and 
Bennie said, “ Have we come to it, 
Tom?” 

Tom answered : “ It’s there, Bennie,” 
and sank down upon a jutting rock, with a 
sudden weakness upon him, and drew the 
blind boy to a seat beside him. 

“ Were shut in, Bennie,” he said. “ We’ll 
never get out till they break a way into us, 
and, maybe, by the time they do that, it’ll 
be — ’twon’t be worth while.” 

Bennie clung tremblingly to Tom ; but, 
even in his fright, it came into his mind to 
say something reassuring, and, thinking of 
his lonesome adventure on the day of the 
strike, he whispered, “ Well, ’taint so bad 
as it might be, Tom ; they might ’a’ been 
one of us shut up here alone, an’ that’d ’a’ 
been awful.” 

“ I wish it had ’a’ been one of us alone,” 
answered Tom, “ for Mommie’s sake. I 
wish it’d ’a’ been only me. Mommie 


140 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

couldn’t ever stan’ it to lose — both of us 
— like — this.” 

For their own misfortune, these boys had 
not shed a tear ; but, at the mention of 
Mommies name, they both began to weep, 
and, for many minutes, the noise of their 
sobbing and crying was the only sound 
heard in the desolate heading. 

Tom was the first to recover. 

A sense of the responsibility of the 
situation had come to him. He knew that 
strength was wasted in tears. And he 
knew that the greater the effort towards 
physical endurance, towards courage and 
manhood, the greater the hope that they 
might live until a rescuing party could 
reach them. Besides this, it was his place, 
as the older and stronger of the two, to be 
very brave and cheerful for Bennie’s sake. 
So he dried his tears, and fought back his 
terror, and spoke soothing words to Ben- 
nie, and even as he did so, his own heart 
grew stronger, and he felt better able to 
endure until the end, whatever the end 
might be. 

“ God can see us, down in the mine, just 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 141 

as well as He could up there in the sun- 
light,” he said to Bennie, “ an’ whatever 
He’d do for us up there He’ll do for us 
down here. An’ there’s them ’at won’t let 
us die here, either, w’ile they’ve got hands 
to dig us out ; an’ I shouldn’t wonder — I 
shouldn’t wonder a bit — if they were 
a-diggin’ for us now.” 

After a time, Tom concluded that he 
would pass up along the line of the fall, 
through the old chambers, and see if there 
was not some opening left through which 
escape would be possible. 

So he took Bennie’s hand again, and led 
him slowly up through the abandoned 
workings, in and out, to the face of the 
fall at every point where it was exposed, 
only to find, always, the masses of broken 
and tumbled rock, reaching from floor to 
roof. 

Yet not always ! Once, as Tom flashed 
the lamp-light up into a blocked entrance, 
he discovered a narrow space between the 
top of the fallen rock and the roof, and, 
releasing Bennie’s hand, and climbing up 
to it, with much difficulty, he found that he 


142 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

was able to crawl through into a little open 
place in the next chamber. 

From here he passed readily through an 
unblocked entrance into the second cham- 
ber, and, at some little distance down it, he 
found another open entrance. The light 
of hope flamed up in his breast as he crept 
along over the smooth, sloping surfaces 
of fallen rock, across one chamber after 
another, nearer and nearer to the slope, 
nearer and nearer to freedom, and the 
blessed certainty of life. Then, suddenly, 
in the midst of his reviving hope, he came 
to a place where the closest scrutiny failed 
to reveal an opening large enough for even 
his small body to force its way through. 
Sick at heart, in spite of his self-determined 
courage, he crawled back through the fall, 
up the free passages and across the slip- 
pery rocks, to where Bennie stood waiting. 

“ I didn’t find any thing,” he said, in as 
strong a voice as he could~ command. 
“ Come, le’s go on up.” 

He took Bennie’s hand and moved on. 
But, as he turned through an entrance into 
the next chamber, he was startled to see, 







THE BLIND BROTHER . 


145 


in the distance, the light of another lamp. 
The sharp ears of the blind boy caught the 
sound of footsteps. 

“ Somebody’s cornin’, Tom,” he said. 

“ I see the lamp,” Tom answered, “but 
I don’t know who it can be. There wasn’t 
anybody in the new chambers w’en I started 
down with the load. All the men went 
out quite a bit ahead o’ me.” 

The two boys stood still ; the strange 
light approached, and, with the light, ap- 
peared, to Tom’s astonished eyes, the huge 
form and bearded face of Jack Rennie. 


146 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

“Why, lads ! ” exclaimed Rennie ; “ lads ! ” 
Then, flashing the light of his lamp into 
the boys’ faces, “ What, Tom, is it you ? 
you and the blind brither ? Ah ! but it’s 
main bad for ye, bairnies, main bad — 
an’ warse yet for the poor mither at 
hame.” 

When Tom first recognized Rennie, he 
could not speak for fear and amazement. 
The sudden thought that he and Bennie 
were alone, in the power of this giant 
whose liberty he had sworn away, over- 
came his courage. But when 'the kindly 
voice and sympathizing words fell on his 
ears, his fear departed, and he was ready 
to fraternize with the convict, as a com- 
panion in distress. 

“ Tom,” whispered Bennie, “ I know his 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 1 47 

voice. It’s the man ’at talked so kind to 
me on the day o’ the strike.” 

“ I remember ye, laddie,” said Jack. 
“ I remember ye richt well.” Then, turn- 
ing to Tom, “ Ye were cornin’ up the fall ; 
did ye find any openin’?” 

“ No,” said Tom, speaking for the first 
time since the meeting; “ none that’s any 
good.” 

“ An’ there’s naught above, either,” re- 
plied Jack ; “so we’ve little to do but wait. 
Sit ye doon, lads, an’ tell me how ye got 
caught.” 

Seated on a shelf of rock, Tom told in 
a few words how he and Bennie had been 
shut in by the fall. Then Jack related to 
the boys the story of his escape from the 
sheriff, and how his comrades had spirited 
him away into these abandoned workings, 
and were supplying him with food until 
such time as he could safely go out in dis- 
guise, and take ship for Europe. 

There he was when the crash came. 

“ Noo ye mus’ wait wi’ patience,” he 
said. “It’ll no’ be for lang ; they’ll soon 
be a-comin’ for ye. The miners ha’ strong 


: 4 3 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


arms an’ stoot herts, an’ ye’ll hear their 
picks a-tap-tappin’ awa’ i’ the headin’ — to- 
morrow, mayhap.” 

“ An’ is it night now ?” asked Bennie. 

“ It mus’ be, lad. I ha’ naught to mark 
the time by, but it mus’ be along i’ the 
evenin’.” 

“ But,” interrupted Tom, as the thought 
struck him, “ if they find you here, you’ll 
have to go back to the jail.” 

“I ha’ thocht o’ that,” answered Jack. 
“ I ha’ thocht o’ that, an’ my min’s made 
up. I’ll go back, an’ stan’ ma sentence. I 
ha’ deserved it. I’d ha’ no peace o’ min’ 
a-wanderin’ o’er the earth a-keepin’ oot o’ 
the way o’ the law. An’ maybe, if I lived 
ma sentence oot, I could do some’at that’s 
better. But I’ll no’ hide any longer ; I 
canna do it ! ” 

Off somewhere in the fall there was a 
grinding, crunching sound for a minute, 
and then a muffled crash. Some loosened 
portion of the roof had fallen in. 

For a long time Jack engaged the boys in 
conversation, holding their minds as much 
as possible from the fate of imprisonment. 




THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 49 

Toward midnight Bennie complained of 
feeling hungry, and Jack went down into 
the old chambers where he had been stay- 
ing, and came back after a while with a 
basket of food and a couple of coarse blan- 
kets, and then they all went up to Bennie’s 
doorway. Tom’s oil was up there, and 
their lamps needed filling. It seemed 
more like home up there too ; and, besides 
that, it was the point toward which a rescu- 
ing party would be most likely to work. 

Jack’s basket was only partly full of 
food, but there would be enough, he 
thought, to last, by economical use, during 
the following day. He ate none of it him- 
self, however, and the boys ate but spar- 
ingly. 

Then they made up a little platform 
from the boards and timbers of the ruined 
door, and spread the blankets on it, and 
induced Bennie, who seemed to be weak 
and nervous, to lie down on it and try to 
sleep. But the lad was very restless, and 
slept only at intervals, as, indeed, did Tom 
and Jack, one of whom had stretched 
himself out on the bench, while the other 


150 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

sat on the mine floor, reclining against a 
pillar. 

When they thought it was morning, they 
all arose and walked around a little, and 
the boys ate another portion of the food 
from the basket. But Jack did not touch 
it ; he was not hungry, he said, and he 
went off into the new chambers to explore 
the place. 

After a while he came back and sat 
down, and began telling stories of his boy- 
hood life in the old country, intermingling 
with them many a marvellous tale and 
strange adventure, and so he entertained 
the boys for hours. 

It must have been well on into the after- 
noon that Tom took to walking up and 
down the heading. Sometimes Jack went 
with him, but oftener he remained to talk 
with Bennie, who still seemed weak and ill, 
and who lay down on the blankets again 
later on, and fell asleep. 

The flame of the little lamp burned up 
dimly. More oil and a fresh wick were 
put in, but the blaze was still spiritless. 

Jack knew well enough what the trouble 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 1 5 I 

was. There were places up in the new 
chambers where the deadly carbonic acid 
gas was escaping into the prison, adding, 
with terrible rapidity, to the amount pro- 
duced by exhalation and combustion. But 
he said nothing ; the boys did not know, 
and it would be useless to alarm them 
further. 



Bennie started and moaned now and then 
in his sleep, and finally awoke, crying. He 
had had bad dreams, he said. 

Jack thought it must be late in the second 
evening of their imprisonment. 

He took all the food from the basket, 
and divided it into three equal parts. It 


52 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


would be better to eat it, he thought, before 
actual suffering from hunger began. They 
would be better able to hold out in the 
end. 

Nevertheless, he laid his portion back in 
the basket. 

“ I haven’t the stomach for it just noo,” 
he said. “ Mayhap it’ll taste better an’ I 
wait a bit.” 

There was plenty of water. A little 
stream ran down through the airway, from 
which the pail had been repeatedly filled. 

The night wore on. 

The first sound of rescue had not yet 
been heard. 

By-and-by both boys slept. 

Jack alone remained awake and thought- 
ful. His face gave token of great physical 
suffering. Once he lifted the cover from 
the basket, and looked hungrily and long- 
ingly at the little portion of food that re- 
mained. Then he replaced the lid, and set 
the basket back resolutely on the ledge. 

“ No ! no ! ” he murmured. “ I mus’ na 
tak’ it oot o’ the mou’s o’ Tom Taylor’s 
bairns.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


153 


For a long time he sat motionless, with 
his chin in his hands, and his eyes fixed on 
the sleeping lads. Then, straightening up, 
there came into his face a look of heroic 
resolution. 

“ I’ll do it ! ” he said, aloud. “ It’ll be 
better for us a’.” 

The sound of his voice awakened Tom, 
who had slept for some hours, and who 
now arose and began again his monotonous 
walk up and down the heading. 

After a while, Jack motioned to him to 
come, and sit beside him on the bench. 

“I ha’ summat to say to ye,” he said. 
Then, with a glance at the sleeping boy, 
“ Come ye up the airway a bit.” 

The two walked up the airway a short 
distance, and sat down on a broken prop 
by the side of the track. 

“ Tom,” said Jack, after a moment or two 
of silence, “ it’s a-goin’ hard wi’ us. Mos’ 
like it’s near two days sin’ the fall, an’ no 
soun’ o’ help yet. Na doot but they’re a- 
workin’, but it’ll tak’ lang to get here fra 
the time ye hear the first tappin’. The 
three o’ us can’t live that lang; mayhap 


154 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


two can. Ye sail be the ones. I ha’ fixed 
on that fra the start. That’s why I ha’ 
ta’en no food.” 

“ An’ we’ve had it all!” broke in Tom. 
“You shouldn’t a-done it. The three of us 
ought to a’ fared alike — ’cept, maybe, Ben- 
nie ; he aint so strong, an’ he ought to be 
favored.” 

“ Yes, Tom, the weakes’ first. That’s 
richt ; that’s why I’m a-givin’ my chances to 
you lads. An’ besides that, my life ain’t 
worth savin’ any way, alongside o’ yours 
an’ Bennie’s. Ye s’all share what’s i’ the 
basket atween ye. ’Tain’t much, but it’ll 
keep ye up as long’s the air’ll support ye. 
It’s a-gettin’ bad, the air is. D’ye min’ the 
lomp, how dim an’ lazy-like it burns? A 
moil’s got to ha’ such strength as food’ll 
give him to hold out lang in air like this.” 

“ I wish you’d ’a’ eaten with us,” inter- 
rupted Tom again. “ ’Tain’t right to let 
your chances go that way on account of 
us.” 

Paying no attention to this protest, Jack 
continued : 

“ But I’ve a thing on mamin’, Tom, that 


THE BLIND BROTHER. I 55 

I’d feel easier aboot an’ fitter for what’s 
a-comin’ if I told it. It’s aboot the father, 
lad ; it’s aboot Tom Taylor, an’ how he 
cam’ to his death. Ye’ll no’ think too hard 
o’ me, Tom ? It wasna the fall o’ top coal 
that killit him — it was me! Tom! lad! 
Tom ! bear wi’ me a minute ! Sit ye an’ 
bear wi’ me ; it’ll no’ be for lang.” 

The boy had risen to his feet, and stood 
staring at the man in terrified amazement. 
Then Jack rose, in his turn, and hurried on 
with his story : 

“ It wasna by intent, Tom. We were the 
best o’ frien’s ; I was his butty. We had 
a chamber thegither that time i’ the Car- 
bondale mine. But one day we quarrelled, 
— I’ve no call to say what aboot, — we 
quarrelled there in the chamber, an’ ugly 
words passed, an’ there cam’ a moment 
when one o’ us struck the ither. 

“ Then the fight began ; han’ to han’ ; 
both lamps oot ; a’ in the dark ; oh, it was 
tarrible ! tarrible ! — doon on the floor o’ 
the mine, crashin’ up against the ragged 
pillars, strugglin’ an’ strainin’ like mad — 
an’ a’ of a sudden, I heard a sharp cry, an’ I 


56 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


felt him a-slippin’ oot o’ ma arms an’ 
doon to ma feet, an’ he lay there an’ was 
still. 

“ I foun’ ma lamp an’ lighted it, an’ 
when I lookit at him, he was dead. 

“ I was a coward. I was afraid to say 
we’d been a-fightin’ ; I was afraid they’d 
say I murdered him. So I blastit doon a 
bit o’ roof, an’ fixed it like the top coal’d 
killit him ; an’ I wasna suspeckit. But I 
could na stay there ; an’ I wandered west, 
an’ I wandered east, an’ I took to drink, an’ 
to evil deeds, an’ at last I cam’ back, 
an’ I went in wi’ the Molly Maguires — 
Scotchman as I was — an’ I done desper- 
ate work for ’em ; work that I oughtn’t to 
be alive to-night to speak aboot — but I 
ha’ suffered ; O lad, I ha’ suffered ! 

“ Mony an’ mony’s the nicht, as often 
as I ha’ slept an’ dreamed, that I ha’ fought 
over that fight i’ the dark, an’ felt that body 
a-slip, slippin’ oot o’ ma grasp. Oh, it’s 
been tarrible, tarrible ! ” 

Jack dropped into his seat again and 
buried his face in his hands. 

The man’s apparent mental agony melted 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


157 



Tom’s heart, and he sat down beside him 
and laid a comforting hand on his knee. 

“ I have naught against you,” he said, 
and repeated, “ I have naught against you.” 

After a while Jack looked up. 

“ I believe ye, lad,” he said, “ an’ some- 
how I feel easier for the tellin’. But ye 
llius’ na tell the mither aboot it, Tom ; I’ve 
a reason for that. I’ve a bit o’ money 
here, that I’ve saved along through the 
years, an’ I’ve neither kith nor kin that’s 
near enow to leave it wi’ — an’ I want she 
sliould have it ; an’ if she knew she might 
' not tak’ it.” 

\ As he spoke he drew, from an inner 
j pocket, a folded and wrapped package, 
gave it to Tom. 

It’s a matter o’ a thousan’ dollars,” he 
ntinued, “ an’ I’d like — I’d like if a part 
it could be used for gettin’ sight for the 
lin’ lad, gin he lives to get oot. I told 
im, one day, that he should have his 
ight, if money’d buy it — an’ I want to 
eep ma ward.” 

Tom took the package, too much amazed, 
nd too deeply moved to speak. 


15.3 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


The grinding noise of settling rock came 
up from the region of the fall, and then, 
for many minutes, the silence was unbroken. 

After a while, Jack said, “ Put the money 
where they’ll find it on ye, gin ye — gin ye 
don’t get oot.” 

Then he rose to his feet again. 

“ You’re not goin’ to leave us ? ” said 
Tom. 

“ Yes, lad, I mus’ go. It’s the way wi' 
hunger, sometimes, to mak’ a man crazy 
till he’s not knowin’ what he does. Ye 
s’all no ha’ that to fear fra me. Tom,” 
grasping the boy, suddenly, by both hands, - 
“ don’t come up into the new chambers. 
Tom ; promise me ! ” t 

Tom promised, and Jack added, “ May- 
hap I s’all not see ye again — good-by — 
keep up heart ; that’s the gret thing for 
both o’ ye — keep up heart, an’ never let 
hope go.” 

Then he loosed the boy’s hands, picked 
up his lamp, and, with a smile on his face, 
he turned away. He passed down the 
airway, and out by the entrance where/ 
blind Bennie lay, still sleeping, and stopped', 


TI1E BLIND BROTHER. 


159 


and looked tenderly down upon him, as 
men look, for the last time in life, on those 
whom they love. 

He bent over, holding his heavy beard 
back against his breast, and touched the 
tangled hair on the child’s forehead with 
his lips ; and then, weak, staggering, with 
the shadow of his fate upon him, he passed 
out on the heading, and up into the new 
chambers, where the poisoned air was 
heavy with the deadly gas, and the lamp- 
flame scarcely left the wick ; and neither 
Tom Taylor nor his blind brother ever 
saw Jack Rennie again, in life or in death. 

When Tom went back to the waiting- 
place, Bennie awoke. 

“ I had such a nice dream, Tom,” he 
said. “ I thought I was a-lyin’ in the little 
bed, at home, in the early mornin’ ; an’ it 
was summer, an’ I could hear the birds 
a-singin’ in the poplar tree outside ; an’ 
then Mommie she come up by the bed an’ 
kissed me ; an’ then I thought, all of a 
sudden, I could see. O Tom, it was 
lovely ! I could see Mommie a-stannin’ 
there, an’ I could see the sunlight a-comin’ 


i6o 


THE BLIND B BOTHER. 


in at the window, an’ a-shinin’ on the floor ; 
an’ I jumped up an’ looked out, an’ it was 
all just like — just like heaven.” 

There was a pause, and then Bennie 
added, “ Tom, do you s’pose if I should 
die now an’ go to heaven, I could see up 
there?” 

“ I guess so,” answered Tom ; “ but you 
aint goin’ to die ; we’re goin’ to get out — 
both of us.” 

But Bennie was still thinking of the 
heavenly vision. 

“ Then I wouldn’t care, Tom ; I’d just 
as lieve die — if only Mommie could be 
with me.” 

Again Tom spoke, in earnest, cheerful 
tones, of the probability of rescue ; and 
discussed the subject long, and stimulated 
his own heart, as well as Bennie’s, with 
renewed hope. 

By-and-by the imperious demands of 
hunger compelled a resort to the remnant 
of food. Tom explained that Jack had 
gone away, to be by himself a while, and 
wanted them to eat what there was in 
the basket. Bennie did not question the 



* 














THE BLIND BROTHER . 1 63 

statement. So the last of the food was 
eaten. 

After this there was a. long period of 
quiet waiting, and listening for sounds of 
rescue, and, finally, both boys lay down 
again and slept. 

Hours passed by with no sound save 
the labored breathing of the sleepers. 
Then Tom awoke, with a prickling sensa- 
tion over his entire body, and a strange 
heaviness of the head and weakness of the 
limbs ; but Bennie slept on. 

“ He might as well sleep,” said Tom, to 
himself, “ it’ll make the time shorter for 
him.” 

But by and by Bennie awoke, and said 
that he felt very sick, and that his head was 
hurting him. 

He feel asleep again soon, however, 
and it was not until some hours later that 
he awoke, with a start, and asked for 
water. After that, though oppressed with 
drowsiness, he slept only at intervals, and 
complained constantly of his head. 

Tom cared for him and comforted him, 
putting his own sufferings out of sight ; 


164 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


sleeping a little, straining his ears for a 
sound of rescue. 

The hours crept on, and the flame of 
the little lamp burned round and dim, and 
the deadly gas grew thicker in the dark- 
ness. 

Once, after a longer period of quiet 
than usual, there came a whisper from 
Bennie. 

“ Tom ! ” 

“ What is it, Bennie ? ” 

“ Where did Jack go ? ” 

“ Up in the new chambers.” 

“ How long’s he been gone ? ” 

“ Oh, a day or two, I guess.” 

“ Hark, Tom, is that him ? ” 

“ I don’t hear any thing, Bennie.” 

“ Listen ! it’s a kind o’ tappin,’ tappin’ — 
don’t you hear it ? ” 

But Tom’s heart was beating so wildly 
that he could hear no lesser noise. 

“ I don’t hear it any more,” said Bennie. 

But both boys lay awake now and lis- 
tened ; and by and by Bennie spoke again, 
“ There it is ; don’t you hear it, Tom ? ” 

This time Tom did hear it ; just the 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 1 65 

faintest tap, tap, sounding, almost, as 
though it were miles away. 

There was a little crowbar there, that 
had been brought down from the new 
chambers. Tom caught it up, and hurried 
into the heading, and beat, half a dozen 
times, on the wall there, and then, drop- 
ping the bar from sheer exhaustion, he 
lay down beside it and listened. 

It was hard to tell if they heard his 
strokes, though he repeated them again 
and again, as his strength would permit. 

But the faint tapping ceased only at in- 
tervals, and, once in a long while, a scarcely 
perceptible thud could be heard. 

Tom crept back to Bennie, and tried to 
speak cheeringly, as they lay and listened. 

But the blind boy’s limbs had grown 
numb, and his head very heavy and painful. 
His utterance, too, had become thick and 
uncertain, and at times he seemed to be 
wandering in his mind. Once he started up, 
crying out that the roof was falling on him. 

Hours passed. Echoing through the 
fall, the sound of pick and crowbar came, 
with unmistakable earnestness, 


1 66 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

Tom had tapped many times on the wall, 
and was sure he had been heard, for the 
answering raps had reached his ears dis- 
tinctly. 

But they were so long coming ; so long ! 
Yet Tom nursed his hope, and fought off 
the drowsiness that oppressed him, and 
tried to care for Bennie. 

The blind boy had got beyond caring for 
himself. He no longer heard the sounds 
of rescue. Once he turned partly on his 
side. 

“Yes, Mommie,” he whispered, “yes, I 
see it; ain’t it pretty!” Then, after a 
pause, “O Mommie, how beautiful — how 
beautiful — it is — to see ! ” 

Tap, tap, thud, came the sounds of res- 
cue through the rock and coal. 

Tap, tap, thud; but, oh, how the moments 
lagged ; how the deadly gas increased ; how 
the sharp teeth of hunger gnawed ; how 
feebly burned the flame of the little lamp ; 
how narrow grew the issue between life 
and death ! 

A time had come when Bennie could be 
no longer roused to consciousness, when 


THE BLIND BROTHER. \6j 

the brain itself had grown torpid, and the 
tongue refused to act. 

Tap ! tap ! louder and louder ; they were 
coming near, men’s voices could be heard ; 
thud ! thud ! the prison-wall began to 
tremble with the heavy blows ; but the 
hours went slipping by into the darkness, 
and, over the rude couch, whereon the 
blind boy lay, the angel of death hung 
motionless, with pinions poised for flight. 

“ O God ! ” prayed Tom; “ O dear God, 
let Bennie live until they come! ” 


i68 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

OUT OF DARKNESS. 

It was with a light heart that the Widow 
Taylor kissed her two boys good-by that 
morning in December, and watched them 
as they disappeared into the fading dark- 
ness. When they were gone she went 
about her household duties with a song on 
her* lips. She did not often sing when she 
was alone ; but this was such a pretty little 
song of a mother and her boy, that on this 
happy winter morning she could not choose 
but sing it. 

Hers were such noble boys, such bright, 
brave boys ! They had given her heart 
and life to begin the struggle for bread, on 
that awful day when she found herself 
homeless, moneyless, among strangers in 
a strange land ; when, in answer to her 
eager question for her husband, she had 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


169 


been told that he had met an untimely 
death, and was already lying in his grave. 

But, as she had toiled and trusted, her 
sons had grown, both in stature and in 
grace, till they had become, indeed, her 
crown of rejoicing. 

One thing yet she looked forward to 
with eager hope, and that was the time 
when her blind boy might have the benefit 
of skilful treatment for his eyes, with the 
possibility of sight. It might take years 
of saving yet, but every day that they 
could all work made the time of waiting 
one day less. So she was hardly less 
rejoiced at the renewal of their tasks than 
were the boys themselves. 

It was a bright day, and warm, too, for 
December ; she thought of it afterward, 
how fair the day was. But it was lonely 
without her boys. It had been weeks 
since they had been away from her all day 
so ; and, long before the sun went down, 
she began to wish for their coming. 

She made supper early, and set out a 
few treasured dainties on the table, in 
honor of the first day’s work. Then, while 


170 THE BLIND BROTHER. 

the shadows grew indistinct, and the dark- 
ness settled down upon the earth, she sat 
by the window and saw the stars come out, 
and waited for her boys. 

Suddenly there came a jar, the house 
rocked slightly, the windows rattled, and a 
dish on the pantry-shelf fell to the floor 
and was broken. 

The Widow Taylor started to her feet, 
and stood, for a moment, wondering what it 
could mean. Then she opened the door of 
her cottage and looked out. 

Other women were standing by their 
gates, and men were hurrying past her in 
the darkness. 

“ What’s happened ? ” she called out, to 
a neighbor. 

“A fall,” came back the answer; “it 
must ’a’ been a fall.” 

“Where?” 

She asked the question with a dreadful 
apprehension settling down upon her. 

“ We canna tell ; but mos’ like it’s i’ the 
Dryden Slope. They’re a - runnin’ that 
way.” 

The widow shrank back into her house, 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 171 

and sank, weakly, into a chair. For the 
moment she was overcome ; but only for 
the moment. Hope came to her rescue. 
There were a hundred chances to one that 
her boys were not in the mine, even if the 
fall had been there ; indeed, it was already 
time for them to be at home. 

She waited, for a few moments, in anx- 
ious indecision ; then, throwing a shawl 
about her head and shoulders, she went 
out into the night. 

She knew very well the route by which 
her boys came from their work, and she 
determined to go until she should meet 
them. There were many people hurrying 
toward the slope, but only one man com- 
ing from it, and he was running for a doc- 
tor, and had no time to talk. 

Increasing anxiety hastened the widow’s 
steps. She could not go fast enough. 
Even as it was, people jostled by her in 
the darkness, and she ran to keep up with 
them. 

At last, the mile that lay between her 
cottage and the mine was almost covered. 
Up on the hillside, at the mouth of the 


172 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


slope, she saw the twinkling and glancing 
of the lights of many lamps. The crowds 
had grown more dense. Other women were 
pushing past her, moaning and lamenting. 

She climbed the hill, and through the 
throng, to where a heavy rope had been 
stretched about the mouth of the slope, as 
a barrier to hold back the pressing crowd ; 
and clutching the rope with both hands, 
she stood there and waited and watched. 

She was where she could see into the 
opening of the mine, and where she could 
see all who came out. 

Some cars were lowered from the slope- 
house to the mouth, and a dozen men, 
with picks and crowbars, climbed into 
them and went speeding down into the 
blackness. It was another rescuing party. 

Across the open space before her, the 
widow saw Sandy McCulloch coming, and 
cried out to him, “ Sandy ! ” 

He stopped for an instant, then, recog- 
nizing the woman’s voice, he came up to 
her, and laid his hands on hers, and, before 
she could speak again, he said, “ Ye’re 
lookin’ for the lads. They’re no’ come oot 
yet.” 


THE BLIND BROTHER . 


173 


“ Sandy — are they safe ? ” 

“ We canna tell. There was mony ’at 
got this side o’ the fall afoor it corned ; an’ 
some ’at got catched in it ; an’ mos’ like 
there be some ’at’s beyon’ it.” 

A car came up the slope, and the body 
of a man was lifted out, placed on a rude 
stretcher, and carried by. 

Sandy moved, awkwardly, to get between 
the dread sight and the woman’s eyes. 
But she looked at it only for a moment. 
It was a man ; and those she sought were 
not men, but boys. 

“ They’re a-workin’,” continued Sandy, 
“ they’re a-workin’ like tigers to get to ’em, 
an’ we’re a-hopin’ ; that’s a’ we can do — 
work an’ hope.” 

The man hurried away and left her, still 
standing there, to watch the car that came 
up from the blackness, at lengthening in- 
tervals, with its dreadful load, and to hear 
the shrill cry from some heart-broken wife 
and mother, as she recognized the victim. 
But they were always men who were 
brought out, not boys. 

After a time, a party of workers came 


174 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


up, exhausted, and others went down in 
their places. The men were surrounded 
with eager questioners, but they had little 
to say. The work of rescue was progress- 
ing, that was all. 

By and by Sandy came back. 

“Ye should no stay here, Mistress Tay- 
lor,” he said. “ When the lads be found ye 
s’all know it ; I’ll bring ’em to ye mysel’. 
Mos’ like they’re back o’ the fall, an’ it’ll 
tak’ time to get ’em — all nicht maybe, 
maybe longer ; but when they’re found, ye 
s’all not be long knowin’ it.” 

“ O Sandy ! ye’ll spare naught ; ye’ll 
spare naught for ’em ? ” 

“ We’ll spare naught,” he said. 

He had started with her towards home, 
helping her along until the bend in the 
road disclosed the light in her cottage win- 
dow ; and then, bidding her to be hopeful, 
and of strong heart, he left her, and hur- 
ried back to aid in the work of rescue. 

The outer line of the fall, and the open- 
ings into it, had already been searched ; 
and all the missing had been accounted for 
— some living, some dead, and some to 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 75 

whom death would have been a happy re- 
lief — all the missing, save Tom Taylor and 
his blind brother. 

It was well known that their route to the 
foot of the slope lay by the new north 
heading ; and, along this passage, the en- 
tire work of rescue was now concentrated. 
The boys would be found, either buried 
under the fall, or imprisoned back of it. 

At some points in the heading, the rescu- 
ing parties found the rock and coal wedged 
in so solidly that the opening of a few feet 
was the work of an hour ; again, the huge 
blocks and slabs were piled up, irregularly; 
and, again, there would be short distances 
that were wholly clear. 

But no matter what these miners met, 
their work never for one moment ceased 
nor lagged. They said little ; men do not 
talk much under a pressure like that ; but 
every muscle was tense, every sense on the 
alert ; they were at the supreme height of 
physical effort. 

Such labor was possible only for a few 
hours at a time, but the tools scarcely 
ceased in their motion, so quickly were 


176 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


they caught up by fresh hands, from the 
exhausted ones that dropped them. 

Men do not work like that for money. 
No riches of earth could charge nerve and 
muscle with such energetic fire. It was, 
indeed, a labor of love. 

There was not a workman in Dryden 
Slope but would have worn his fingers to 
the bone to save these lads, or their wid- 
owed mother, from one hour of suffering. 
The frank, manly character of Tom,, and 
the pathetic simplicity of his blind brother, 
had made both boys the favorites of the 
mine. And beneath the grimy clothes of 
these rugged miners, beat hearts as warm 
and resolute as ever moved the noblest of 
earth’s heroes to generous deeds of daring. 

When the Widow Taylor reached home 
it was almost midnight. She set away the 
supper-dishes from the table, and, in place 
of them, she put some of her simple house- 
hold remedies. She prepared bandages 
and lint, and made every thing ready for 
the restoration and comfort of the sufferers 
when they should arrive. 

She expected that they would be weak, 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 77 

wounded, too, perhaps ; but she had not 
yet thought of them as dead. 

Then she lay down upon her bed and 
tried to sleep ; but at every noise she wak- 
ened ; at every passing foot-fall she started 
to her feet. 

At daybreak a miner stopped, with black- 
ened face and bleeding hands, to tell her 
that the work of rescue was going bravely 
on. He had, himself, just come from the 
face of the new opening, he said ; and 
would go back again, to work, after he had 
taken a little food and a little sleep. 

The morning went by ; noon passed, and 
still no other tidings. The monotony of 
waiting became unbearable at last, and the 
stricken woman started on another journey 
to the mine. 

When she came near to the mouth of 
the slope, they made way for her in silent 
sympathy. A trip of cars came out soon 
after her arrival, and a half-dozen miners 
lifted themselves wearily to the ground. 
The crowd pressed forward with eager 
questions, but the tired workers only shook 
their heads. They feared, they said, that 


i;8 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 


not half the distance through the fall had 
yet been accomplished. 

But one of them, a brawny, great-hearted 
Irishman, came over to where the Widow 
Taylor stood, white-faced and eager-eyed, 
and said, “ It won’t be long now, ma’am, 
till we’ll be afther rachin’ ’em. We’re a- 
hopin’ every blissed hour to break through 
to where the purty lads is a-sthayin’.” 

She started to ask some question, but 
he interrupted her : 

“ Oh, av coorse ! av coorse ! It’s alive 
they are, sure ; an’ hearty ; a bit hungry 
like, maybe, an’ no wondher ; but safe, 
ma’am, as safe as av ye had the both o’ 
thim in your own house, an’ the dure locked 
behind yez.” 

“An’ do ye find no signs?” she asked. 
“ Do ye hear no sounds ? ” 

“ Ah, now ! ” evading the question ; “ niver 
ye fear. Ye’ll see both childer a-laughin’ 
in your face or ever the mornin’ dawns 
again, or Larry Flannigan’s word’s no 
betther than a lie.” 

She turned away and went home again, 
and the long night passed, and the morning 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 79 

dawned, and Larry Flannigan’s word was, 
indeed, no better than a lie. 

It was only the same old story : “ They’re 
a-workin’. It can’t be long now.” 

But among themselves the miners said 
that had the lads escaped the fall, they 
would perish from hunger and foul air long 
before the way could be opened into their 
prison. To bring their lifeless bodies out 
^for decent burial was all that could be 
hoped. 

The morning of the fourth day dawned, 
beautiful and sunny. It was the holy 
Christmas Day ; the day on which the star- 
led shepherds found the Christ-child in the 
hallowed manger in the town of Bethlehem. 
White and pure upon the earth, in the 
winter sunlight, rested a covering of newly 
fallen snow ; and, pale-faced and hollow- 
eyed, the mother of the two imprisoned 
boys looked out upon it from the window 
of her desolated home. 

The sympathizing neighbors who had 
kept her company for the night had gone 
for a little while, and she was alone. 

She knew that there was no hope. 


180 THE BLIND BROTHER . 

They had thought it a kindness to tell 
her so at last, and she had thanked them for 
not keeping the bitter truth hid from her. 

She did not ask any more that she might 
see her two boys in life ; she only prayed 
now that their dear bodies might be brought 
to her unmangled, to be robed for Christian 
burial. 

To this end she began now to make all 
things ready. She put in order the little 
best room ; she laid out the clean, new 
clothing, and the spotless sheets ; she even 
took from her worn purse the four small 
coins to place upon the white, closed lids. 

In the locked cupboard, where the boys 
should not see them till the time came, 
she found the Christmas presents she had 
thought to give to them this day. 

Not much, indeed. A few cheap toys, 
some sweetmeats purchased secretly, a book 
or two, and, last of all, some little gifts that 
her own weary, loving hands had wrought 
in the long hours after the children were 
asleep. 

And now the Christmas dawn had come ; 
but the children — 


/ 











THE BLIND BROTHER . 


183 


She had not wept before, not since the 
first jar from the fall had rocked her cottage ; 
but now, with the sight of these poor, simple 
Christmas gifts, there came some softening 
influence that moved her heart, and brought 
the swift tears to her eyes, and she sat 
down in her accustomed chair and wept — 
wept long and piteously, indeed, but in the 
weeping found relief. 

She was aroused by a knock at the door. 
The latch was lifted, the door pushed open, 
and Sandy McCulloch stumbled in. He 
was out of breath, his eyes were wide with 
excitement, and down each side of his grimy 
face was a furrow where the tears had run. 

The widow started to her feet. 

“ Sandy ! ” 

A wild hope had come into her heart. 

“They’re found !” he forced out breath 
enough to say. 

“ O Sandy, alive or — or ” — 

She could not finish the question ; the 
room seemed whirling round her ; she 
grasped at the chair for support. 

“Alive!” he shouted. “Alive, an’ a- 
goin’ to live ! ” 


1 84 the blind brother. 

He started forward, and caught the woman 
as she fell. The shock of joy had been too 
sudden and too great, and for a time nature 
gave way before it. 

But it was indeed true. When the men, 
working at the face of the tunnel, caught 
the sound of responsive tappings, they 
labored with redoubled energy, if such a 
thing could be, and, after another night of 
most gigantic effort, they broke through 
into the prison-house, to find both boys 
unconscious indeed, but alive, alive. 

Medical aid was at hand, and though for 
a time the spirit of Bennie seemed fain to 
leave his wasted body, it took a firmer hold 
at last, and it was known that he would 
live. 

In triumphant procession, they bore the 
rescued, still unconscious, boys in tender 
haste to their mother’s house ; and those 
who ran before shouted, “ Found! found ! ” 
and those who followed after cried, “ Alive ! 
alive ! ” 

How the women kissed their own chil- 
dren and wept, as they saw the lads borne 
by ! How the men grasped one another’s 


i 



0 






THE BUND BROTHER. 


187 


hands, and tried to speak without a tremor 
in the voice — and failed. And how wild 
the whole town went over the gallant res- 
cue of the widow’s sons ! 

But Jack Rennie, poor Jack, brave, mis- 
guided Jack ! They found his body later 
on, and gave it tender burial. But it was 
only when the lips of Tom and Bennie 
were unsealed, with growing strength, that 
others knew how this man’s heroic sacrifice 
had made it possible for these two boys to 
live. 

Under the most watchful and tender care 
of his mother, Tom soon recovered his 
usual health. But for Bennie the shock 
had been more severe. He gained strength 
very slowly, indeed. He could not free his 
mind from dreadful memories. Many a 
winter night he started from his sleep, 
awakened by dreams of falling mines. 

It was not until the warm, south winds 
of April crept up the valley of Wyoming, 
that he could leave his easy-chair without 
a hand to help him; and not until all the 
sweet roses of June were in blossom that 
he walked abroad in the sunlight as before. 


1 88 TILE BLIND BROTHER. 

But then — oh, then what happened ? 
Only this: that Jack Rennie’s gift was put 
to the use he had bespoken for it ; that 
skilled hands in the great city gave proper 
treatment to the blind boy’s eyes through 
many weeks, and then — he saw ! Only 
this ; but it was life to him, — new, sweet, 
joyous life. 

One day he stepped upon the train, with 
sight restored, to ride back to his valley 
home. Wide-eyed he was ; exuberant with 
hope and fancy, seeing all things, talking 
to those about him, asking many ques- 
tions. 

The full and perfect beauty of late sum- 
mer rested on the land. The fields were 
never more luxuriantly green and golden, 
nor the trees more richly clothed with 
verdure. The first faint breath of coming 
autumn had touched the landscape here 
and there with spots of glowing color, and 
the red and yellow fruit hung temptingly 
among the leaves of all the orchard trees. 

The waters of the river, up whose wind- 
ing course the train ran on and on, were 
sparkling in the sunlight with a beauty 


THE BLIND BROTHER. 1 89 

that, in this boy’s eyes, was little less than 
magical. 

And the hills ; how high the hills were ! 
Bennie said he never dreamed the hills 
could be so high. 

“ Beautiful ! ” he said, again and again, 
as the ever changing landscapes formed 
and faded in his sight ; “ beautiful ! beau- 
tiful ! ” 

Before the train reached Wilkesbarre the 
summer evening had fallen, and from that 
city, up the valley of Wyoming, Bennie 
saw from the car-window only the twin- 
kling of many lights. 

Tom was at the station to meet him. 
Dear, brave Tom, how his heart swelled 
with pride, as, by some unaccountable in- 
stinct, Bennie came to him, and called 
him by name, and put his arms around 
his neck. 

Many were there to see the once blind 
boy, and give him welcome home. And 
as they grasped his hand, and marked his 
happiness, some laughed for joy, and others, 
— for the same reason indeed, — others 
wept. 


I9O THE BLIND BROTHER. 

Then they started on the long home 
walk, Tom and Bennie, hand in hand to- 
gether, as they used to go hand in hand, 
to find and greet the mother. 

She was waiting for them ; sitting by the 
window in her chair, as she had sat that 
dreadful winter night ; but there came now 
no sudden jar to send a pallor to her face ; 
she heard, instead, the light footsteps of 
her two boys on the walk, and their voices 
at the door; and then — why, then, she 
had Bennie in her arms, and he was say- 
ing — strange that they should be the very 
words that passed his lips that awful hour 
when death hung over him — he was say- 
ing, “OMommie! how beautiful — how 
beautiful — it is — to see ! ” 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 

































































































































* 

















DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


No. 6 Shaft in the Lackawanna coal- 
field in Pennsylvania is owned by a great 
corporation. The shaft is three hundred 
and ten feet from top to bottom. 

From the foot of the shaft, northerly, 
runs a long, low, narrow gallery, cut through 
the solid coal, known as the north head- 
ing, and from the foot of the shaft, south- 
erly, runs a similar gallery known as the 
south heading, and up to the east from 
this main gangway, the ten-feet vein of 
anthracite is honeycombed with minor 
passages. 

Away up, in a remote series of chambers, 
a mile from the main shaft, is another 
opening called the air-shaft, up whose 
perpendicular distance of full two hundred 
feet, like spiders’ webs, thinning out into 


193 


194 DICK, THE DOOR- BOY. 

invisibility, a set of ladders reaches, by zig- 
zag stages, to the top. 

The air-shaft opens into a field where 
clover blossoms in the summer time, where 
cattle browse, and a spring brook runs ; 
and down it comes the fresh, pure air, to 
carry health and life to the rugged toilers 
of the depths. 

Now, this current of air must be con- 
trolled. It must not waste itself in devious 
and erratic wanderings throughout the 
mine, but must pass by marked-out chan- 
nels, across the breasts of chambers, down 
the airways and up the headings, and 
through the passages, wherever men need 
it, till it finds its way once more to the sun- 
light, drawn out in the draught that courses 
up the main shaft. 

But to keep those currents in their places, 
the headings are here and there boarded 
tightly across, and a rude doorway cut in 
the boarding, and a door placed there to 
be opened only when necessity demands it. 

On the main headings these doors are in 
constant use, and at each door is stationed 
a boy to swing it open when a trip of mine- 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 1 95 

cars comes rattling up, and to close it after 
the cars have passed. 

So Dick was a door-boy in No. 6, and 
his door was where the slate-rock airway 
branches off from the south heading. 

Dick was somewhere about ten years old, 
nobody knew exactly. His father, such as 
he had, had fled in disgrace, and his mother 
had died — died of grief and shame and 
hard work and a broken heart — about the 
time Dick could stand alone with the aid 
of a friendly chair. 

Dick’s uncle took him then ; but Dick’s 
uncle was a man depressed by poverty and 
strong drink, and Dick’s aunt was coarse 
and careless, with eight children of her 
own, and no love for Dick. So the poor 
boy travelled on a rough road. It was a 
wretched apology for a home, even for the 
children of the mother there, but for this 
stray lamb it was only a place where he 
could sleep and where he need not starve. 

Dick was put into the mines when he 
was well along in his eighth year. He was 
a frail child, not big enough to pick slate, 
nor strong enough to drive a mule, but 


196 DICK , : THE DOOR-BOY. 

old enough, certainly, to do something to 
help pay for his support. And so Dick’s 
uncle, who was a miner’s laborer in No. 6, 
had found a place there for him to attend 
door. Dick never knew what wages he 
earned ; his uncle drew them ; they were 
not much at any rate, barely enough to 
keep the man in strong drink. 

But there were fifty men in No. 6 who 
were kinder to Dick than Dick’s uncle was, 
— men who always had a pleasant word 
for him, who gave him oil and wick for his 
little tin lamp, and better things to eat than 
he had in his own dinner-pail, and who 
would not allow the driver-boys to abuse 
or bully him. So that Dick’s lot was not 
such a very, very hard one after all. He 
had abundance of time in which to think, 
sitting all day alone in the darkness, and 
sometimes he thought he would be happier 
if he could only spend his days out of the 
mines, out of the damp, smoky air, out of 
the loneliness and the everlasting gloom. 
He would be willing to work hard, he said 
to himself, very hard, if he could only be 
out in the sweet air and the sunshine, and 


DICK , ; THE DOOR- BOY. 197 

smell the fragrance of the fields, and see 
the flowers blossom, and hear the birds 
sing, and listen to the voices of happy 
children in their play. 

And now it was winter, and four nights 
ago there had come a snow-storm, and the 
sleigh-bells were jingling in the streets, 
and the boys were coasting on the hills, 
and Dick had not even seen the snow by 
the light of day. 

These winter mornings they were at the 
shaft before the east grew red, and nights, 
when they came out, the darkness had long 
covered the face of earth, so that Sunday 
was the only day for months that Dick 
could ever see the sun make light and 
shadow, or the white snow glisten on the 
distant hills. 

It was the day before Christmas. Dick 
knew Christmas only as a day when there 
was no work, a day when he could go into 
the streets of the town and see beautiful 
things in the shop windows and hear the 
voices of merry children ; and, last of all, it 
was a day on which his uncle got more 
than commonly drunk, and came home at 


igS DICK, THE DOOR-BO Y. 

night to rave through the house like a mad 
man, and, like as not, to turn them all out 
into the cold and snow. 

So it was with mingled anticipations of 
pleasure and of punishment that Dick sat by 
his door in the mine the day before Christ- 
mas, and thought vaguely of what he should 
see and do on the morrow. 

There came to Dick’s ears a faint sound 
of voices, and away up the heading he 
saw the twinkling of many lamps. He 
looked and listened. They were coming 
toward him. The voices grew more dis- 
tinct, and some of them were women’s 
voices, and by and by a clear, ringing 
laugh came echoing down along the rough 
hewn walls. 

Dick’s eyes glowed with pleasurable 
anticipation and excitement. He loved 
the sound of a musical voice. One holi- 
day he had followed, at a respectful dis- 
tance, a party of young girls a full half- 
mile, just to drink in the music of their 
words and laughter. And here were ladies 
coming, four of them, and as many gentle- 
men, and the mine boss of No. 6 was with 
them as a guide. 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 1 99 

They had gone up into the chambers 
from the north heading, and across through 
the entrances to the four-feet fault, then 
down to the south heading, and were now 
on their way to the foot of the shaft. 

They stopped when they got to Dick’s 
door, and the ladies sat down on Dick’s 
bench to rest. It was a bench that the 
mine carpenter made one day for Dick, at 
the “ dinner- wait,” when he was there put- 
ting in the new door. 

The four ladies just filled it up ; the 
stout, middle-aged one occupying at least 
a third of it, while one of the young men 
pretended to hold up the end on which 
she sat, lest it should suddenly give way. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” she panted, “ how tired I 
am, and what a jaunt we have had ; and 
how much farther is it to that horrid shaft? 
and will it be so frightful going up as it 
was coming down ? Oh, what a dreadful 
sensation ! ” and the stout lady took on a 
look of utter despair. 

“ You’ll have to go up alone, aunt 
Charlotte,” said the young man, who had 
ceased supporting the bench, and now 


200 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


stood leaning idly against the wooden 
partition. 

“ Alone ? Oh, dear me, no ! I should 
faint, I really should ; but why must I go 
up alone ? ” 

“ Why, you see,” responded the inveter- 
ate tease, “ it’s against the rules of the 
company to carry more than twelve hun- 
dred weight on an up-going carriage, 
and ” — 

“ You wretch !” broke in aunt Charlotte, 
making a pass at him with a walking-stick. 

He started back in pretended fright, 
and in doing so stumbled over Dick, who 
was standing in a dark corner, across the 
heading. 

“ Hello ! ” exclaimed the young man, 
regaining his centre of gravity, and picking 
Dick up, “ did I hurt you, my boy?” 

“ No,” said Dick; “no sir, not a bit, sir.” 

“ Why, what a little boy ! ” exclaimed 
two of the young ladies in unison. “ How 
ever did you get in here ? ” said the one 
nearest Dick ; “ And what are you doing 
here ? ” added the other. 

“ I ’tend door, ma’am,” answered Dick. 


DICK , ; THE DOOR- BOY. 


201 


“ Come over here, and let me see you,” 
said the stout lady. “ Why,” she added, 
as Dick crossed the track and stood in 
front of her, “ he’s not a bad-looking boy. 
What’s your name, sonny ? ” 

“ Dick.” 

“ Dick what ? ” 

“ That’s all the name I has, ma’am ; but 
my uncle, he’s name is John Budd.” 

Dick suddenly remembered that he had 
his cap on, and snatched it from his head. 

“ Do you go to school ? ” continued the 
questioning aunt Charlotte. 

“ No, ma’am,” Dick said slowly; “ I has 
to work.” 

“ But you go to Sunday school on Sun- 
day, do you not ? ” 

“ No, ma’am, I ain’t got no clothes.” 

“ And did no one ever teach you the 
catechism ? ” 

Dick looked around helplessly. “ No, 
ma’am, I guess I don’t know what that is, 
but I ain’t never been taught nothin’, ’cept 
I know what the Dutch is for ‘ I don’t give 
a darn ! ’ ” 

There was an exclamation of horror from 


202 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


aunt Charlotte, and a suppressed titter 
from the young ladies, and one of the men 
said, — 

“Well, what is it, my boy, what is it? 
speak up, don’t be afraid,” for poor Dick 
had just begun to realize that he had made 
a mess of it somehow, and was digging 
with his heel into the dirt in painful em- 
barrassment. 

“ Well, out with it, come,” added the 
young man, as the boy blushed and hesi- 
tated, “ out with it ! ” Dick was afraid to 
refuse, now that he had gone- so far, and 
he stammered out, “ Smack me nix ouse ,” 
and then felt that he would be willing to 
die on the spot ; and the general laugh that 
followed his free translation did not tend 
to make the poor child any happier. 

But, in the midst of the merriment, one 
young lady, a bright, dashing, handsome 
brunette, who saw Dick’s shame and de- 
spair, and pitied him, hurried to the rescue. 

“ Come, now ! ” she exclaimed, “ this is 
cruel. You shall not make game of the boy 
any more ; let me talk with him. Here, Dick, 
never mind ; do you know ” — pausing and 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY , i 203 

trying to think of something to talk about 
to the disconcerted boy — “do you know 
that to-morrow is Christmas? and have you 
seen the pretty things in the shop windows 
on Front Street ? and don’t you wish you 
could buy them and give them away ? and 
if you could, you would give me something, 
wouldn’t you ? ” 

“Yes, ma’am ; yes, indeed,” assented Dick 
with an emphatic nod of his head; for he 
had already forgotten his embarrassment, 
and fallen in love with this dark-eyed 
beauty, whose winning smile and sympa- 
thetic voice had conquered other hearts no 
less easily then they were conquering 
Dick’s. 

“ And say, Dick,” she went on, “ did you 
ever see a Christmas-tree, a nice big Christ- 
mas-tree, full of candles and flowers and 
presents and every thing beautiful, did you, 
Dick?” 

And Dick’s eyes and face were aglow as 
he answered, “ No, not like that. I seen 
one onct, a little one, a little bit a one, in 
Smith & Simpson’s store, in the big win- 
dow, last Christmas, but it wasn’t like that.” 


204 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


The young lady was becoming as much 
interested in the boy as the boy was in her. 
There was something in his face she 
liked. A happy thought came to her : 
“ Now, Dick,” she said, “ I’ll tell you what 
you must do ; you must come to my house 
to-night, and I’ll show you the most beauti- 
ful Christmas-tree you ever saw, and 
there’ll be something on it for you, too. 
Will you come ? ” 

“ Why, Julie ! ” interrupted one of the 
party, “ What will mamma say?” 

But Julie held up her gloved hand im- 
periously, and turned to Dick again : “ Will 
you come, Dick? You know where Colonel 
Miles lives, don’t you ? and I’m Colonel 
Miles’s little girl, and we shall expect you at 
eight o’clock, and we’ll send you back home 
in a sleigh ; will you come ? ” 

Dick didn’t know what to say. A vision, 
something like heaven, flashed across his 
mind, and he stammered : “ Yes, ma’am — 
yes — yes, ma’am ; ” and then, looking down 
at his poor, ragged, dirty clothes, he cried 
out, “ Oh, I can’t, I can’t come, lady, I 
can’t ! ” 


/ 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


205 


But Julie, taking his little soiled hand re- 
assuringly, said, “ Never mind the clothes, 
Dick; I’ll see to the clothes; you’ll trust me 
to arrange that, won’t you ? and you’ll come ; 
you know where to come, Dick ? ” 

Dick nodded. Everybody knew where 
the mansion of the coal king was. 

And then Julie, bending down and look- 
ing intently into Dick’s eyes, “ Promise 
me, Dick, that you will come.” 

And Dick, looking back solemnly into 
her eyes, answered, “ I promise you.” 

Then spoke up one of Julie’s lovers : 
“ Would it not be well, fair princess, to give 
your knight some token of regard that he 
may bear through storm and stress, in 
deeds of daring do, and bring it to his 
lady in her halls to-night to prove his 
fealty and faith ? ” 

“Thank you, Sir Charles, for the sug- 
gestion.” And without more adieu, she 
stripped the glove from her hand, drew 
from her finger a ring whose peerless gem 
shot rays of glinting light into the black 
shadows of the mine, and stooped and 
pressed it into Dick’s tiny palm. 


206 DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 

“ Bring me this ring to-night, Dick ; 
goocl-by ! ” then turning to the party : 
“ Come, let’s go.” 

There had been open-eyed astonishment. 
Some one said, “ Julie, are you mad ? ” but 
Julie hac\ started away down the heading in 
the wake of the mine boss, and all they 
could do was to follow her with murmuring 
dissent. 

Then one who would be still smarter 
than his fellow, shouted out : “ Why, Miss 
Julie, you have forgotten to kiss your 
ardent follower farewell.” 

“ I thank you, too,” she said, “ I am 
under great obligation to both of you.” 
And she turned on her heel and went back 
to where Dick still stood in mute amaze- 
ment, and bent down and placed her arm 
around his neck, and raised his face to 
hers, and pressed a long, warm, tender kiss 
upon his childish lips, and turned and 
went away. 

Dick stood there like one in a dream, 
and saw the lights go out, one by one, 
around the curve below him, in the head- 
ing ; stood motionless and speechless for 


DICK , THE DOOR- BOY. 


207 


full ten minutes, till, at last, the struggling 
words came breaking from his lips : “ She 
— she — kissed me ; ” and he sank down 
upon the bench where she had sat, and 
wondered if he had been in heaven. 

No one had ever kissed him before, not 
even his mother that he ever remembered ; 
he had never thought that any one ever 
would kiss him, and now this lady, this 
sweet lady, this beautiful lady, had placed 
her arm around his neck, the soft fur of 
her outer wrap had touched his cheek, he 
had felt her hand pressed tenderly, caress- 
ingly against his face, and her lips — her 
lips — and here Dick lost his breath again, 
and dwelt for another little space in heaven. 

You may not think it, ladies, you need 
not believe it, gentlemen, but that woman’s 
kiss to that little boy was sweeter, dearer, 
more magnetic and inspiring than any kiss 
that ever sweetheart gave to lover under 
the sun or stars. It filled him, thrilled 
him, bound him in great bonds of loyalty 
to the one human being who had first 
struck the dormant chord of his affection. 

A miner and two laborers came by and 


208 dick, the door-boy. 

spoke cheerily to Dick and passed on, but 
he did not hear them. 

A trip of cars came roaring down the 
heading. Dick pulled open the door, me- 
chanically, to let it pass. The driver-boy 
cracked his whip over the ears of the 
lagging mule, and shouted, “ All aboard, 
Dick ; last trip ! ” but Dick was too busily 
engaged with his own thoughts to heed 
him, and the cars went thundering on into 
the darkness. 

By and by Dick became conscious that 
he. was clasping something in his hand, and 
then he remembered the ring. There it 
was, pressed tightly in his palm, just where 
she had laid it. He awoke from his reverie, 
and began to study out the best method of 
carrying the jewelled circlet. 

He would not have dared put it on his 
finger, even had his finger been large 
enough ; his one pocket was not fit to hold 
so beautiful a thing, and he feared to carry 
it in his hand, lest by some unaccountable 
accident it should be lost. 

Finally an excellent method occurred to 
him. He opened the breast of his coarse, 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 20g 

woollen shirt, gathered a little portion of it 
into the form of a bag, placed the ring 
therein, and pinned it fast with two horse- 
shoe nails worn smooth in the service of 
picking up the wick of his lamp. 

He buttoned his ragged coat across it 
then, and felt that it was safe. And he 
knew that when night came and he was out 
of the mine and had eaten his supper and 
tidied himself up, he would take it and lay 
it once again in the hand of the dear lady 
who had placed such unbounded confidence 
in the honor of a boy. 

He had no more doubt that he would do 
this than he had doubts of his own exist- 
ence. 

Dick was awake now ; he had never been 
so fully awake in his life before ; every 
nerve was tingling with pleasurable ex- 
citement and anticipation, and he looked 
forward with impatient desire to the hour 
when he might stand for a little while in 
the light and warmth and beauty that sur- 
rounded the person of the lady whom he 
loved. 

A long time he waited, and wondered 


210 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


why the loaded cars did not come, and 
grew more and more impatient at delay. 

He had been accustomed to riding in to 
the foot of the shaft on the last car of the 
last trip at night ; they always told him 
when the last trip came by, for then his 
day’s work was done. 

Suddenly it occurred to him that the 
driver of the last load that passed had 
called out to him ; but what did he say ? 
The boy thought for a moment, and then 
the words came back to him : “ All aboard, 
Dick, last trip ! ” 

The recollection startled him. Suppose 
it were indeed the last trip and they were 
all through work and gone home, and the 
carriage had been hoisted for the last time ; 
what then ? 

Why then, a night in the mines for poor 
Dick. 

The thought would have been appalling 
at any time, but this night it was doubly 
so. 

He snatched up his lamp and started off 
down the heading on a run, and never 
stopped throughout the full half-mile until 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


21 1 


he came, all breathless and trembling, to 
the foot of the shaft. 

Alas, it was too true f stillness reigned 
there ; they were all gone ; he was alone. 

He ran to the wire that leads to the bell 
in the engine-house at the surface, and 
pulled the handle again and again, and 
many times, but there was no answer, no 
sound. 

This was maddening. He ran back and 
stood under the shaft and shouted till he 
was hoarse, and hammered the side of the 
carriage with his little clinched fist, and 
then in the fulness of bitter disappoint- 
ment and despair he sank down on the 
hard, wet floor of the mine and wept, wept 
piteously and passionately and long. 

To stay in that black, gloomy, ghostly 
mine all night, alone ; it was too terrible 
for thought. And the lady, the sweet lady, 
she would think he kept the ring, and she 
would never kiss him, nor speak to him, 
nor look at him again. 

And before morning came he would die, 
die of loneliness and fright. Even now he 
started up and looked around him, as if 


212 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


half expecting to see some awful shape arise 
out of the gloom ; but he saw only the black 
walls of his prison, and the still blacker 
depths beyond them. Suddenly something 
glided out before him, and then scampered 
away into the darkness. 

“ Rats ! ” 

Dick started up in terror. If there was 
any thing he was in mortal fear of, it was 
rats. 

These great, ugly, savage mine-rats were 
to him a constant source of fear. He had 
seen them fight a driver-boy once, and bite 
him so severely that he never came into the 
shaft again. 

He must escape, he must go out, he felt 
that he should go mad, if he had to stay 
there ; he looked up appealingly to the 
solid roof; he ran to the bell wire again, and 
pulled it wildly, once, twice, thrice, a dozen 
times ; all, all in vain. Then some evil angel 
put it into his head, the thought came like 
a flash of light : The air-shaft, the ladders ! 

He did not stop an instant to consider, 
but snatching up his lamp, he started up 
north heading, at his greatest speed. 


DICK ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


213 


Dick knew where the air-shaft opened 
on the outside, and once he had been to 
its foot in the mines, and had seen the 
ladders reaching up, by stages, to the top, 
and had thought what a toilsome journey 
it would be to climb them to the surface. 
Now he hailed the recollection as a piece 
of rare good fortune, that promised his 
release. He would still be there in time, 
would still deliver up the ring, and meet 
the warm approval of those lustrous eyes, 
and maybe — who would dare to say that 
she would not — maybe she would give him 
just another kiss. 

And so he hurried on up the heading 
into the airway, and along the passage 
where the iron track was laid, till he came 
to a place where two ways met, and there 
he stopped, breathless and in doubt, for 
he knew not which road to follow. He 
had forgotten the route. But there was 
no time to lose ; he must make his choice, 
and, still undecided, he plunged in to the 
right. 

But he had not gone far before, fearful 
that he was on the wrong road, he hur- 


214 DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 

riedly retraced his steps, and took the 
opening to the left. He walked more 
deliberately now, throwing the light of his 
lamp around him as he went, taking mental 
note of every object that he passed that 
might, in any way, indicate his proper 
course ; stopping at the branching roads 
and considering carefully which one to fol- 
low, and feeling and knowing, that, after 
all, he was simply walking at random, and 
that only some happy chance would bring 
him where he wished to go. 

By and by, after a long, long walk, he 
found himself in the abandoned portion 
of the mine, a place that had long ago 
been worked out and deserted. He knew 
that on his former journey to the air-shaft, 
he had passed through these old workings, 
and so he kept on. 

The path that he was following led 
through an entrance and down a chamber, 
and along a passage, where the echo of 
pick or hammer had not been heard for 
many a year. 

The surfaces of the pillars were dull and 
rusty; the caps and rails of the mine car- 


DICK, THE DOOR- BOY. 


215 


track were decayed and crushed ; the few 
props still standing were covered with a 
damp, dark mould, and here and there fes- 
toons and masses of a fungous, wool-like 
growth clung to them in snowy whiteness. 

Go where you will, you will find no place 
so desolate, so ghostly, so utterly forbid- 
ding, as the deserted and decayed galleries 
of a worked-out mine. 

Dick felt that strange dread of the unseen 
coming on him again, and quickened his 
pace. It seemed as though something, 
some dreadful thing, was following behind. 
Once, and once only, he summoned cour- 
age to turn and look back. He pushed 
open a rickety, mould-covered door that 
barred his passage ; the rotten wood gave 
way at the hinges, and the door fell with 
a crash that sent the echoes moaning and 
groaning through the deserted chambers, 
till they died away in very weakness. 

Dick’s pace increased as his fear grew 
greater. He was almost on a run. If he 
could only get out of these old workings, 
with their dreadful suggestions, and ghostly 
shapes and unseen presences ! 


21 6 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


The flame of his lamp was growing some- 
what dim. He stopped to pick up the wick 
to make it burn brighter. It came up in a 
spiritless blaze. He threw back the lid and 
looked in ; there was no oil there ; it had 
burned out. 

In five minutes he would be in total dark- 
ness. The sense of this new horror came 
down upon him like a burden. He turned 
quickly to retrace his steps toward the main 
shaft, but a second thought convinced him 
of the utter folly of such an effort, and, 
scarcely knowing what he did, he plunged 
ahead, in the desperate hope of getting at 
least beyond the borders of these deserted 
chambers in the lifetime of his light. 

Moaning piteously as he ran, his weak 
limbs trembling from exhaustion and fright, 
staggering sometimes from side to side, 
shielding the blaze that each .moment grew 
more dim, he hurried on and on ; but no 
matter how fast or how far, the ghostly 
cerements of decay were still around him. 

At last the tiny flame went out. and 
only the sparks on the smouldering wick 
remained. 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


217 


Dick could not see ; he stumbled, fell on 
the lamp, extinguished the last spark, 
scrambled to his feet, and stood there 
alone in the depth of the earth, in im- 
penetrable darkness, in the ghoul-haunted 
regions of desolation, lost ! 

Dick’s limbs gave way beneath him ; he 
sank to the floor of the mine, and, with face 
buried in his hands, lay silent, motionless, 
in abject terror. 

Few people know what absolute dark- 
ness is. The darkest night, the darkest 
room, is no comparison. It is only in the 
underground galleries remote from any 
shaft or passage-way of light that one can 
appreciate how like a black burden it 
weighs down upon the human conscious- 
ness. 

Few people know what absolute silence 
is. There is no such thing on the face of 
the earth. But in the depths of the mine 
where there is no life, .no motion, no 
change, silence is terrible. It strains and 
pains the ears, it assaults the nerves, it is 
simply impossible to bear. And when the 
forces of darkness and silence unite their 


DICK, THE DOOR- BOY. 


energies, they exert a pressure that no con- 
scious human being can long endure. 

Dick could not endure it. To lie there 
was torture, indescribable torture. To try 
to move was to face danger even more 
dreadful. The boy’s mind was beginning 
to give way under the terrible pressure. He 
saw strange visions. In his morbid fancy 
the black air around him was peopled with 
ghostly shapes, all bent on his destruction. 
He started up, leaning on his elbow, and 
stared wildly into the darkness. 

He raised himself to his feet and ran, 
ran squarely into a huge, jagged pillar of 
coal, with a shock that laid him prostrate, 
and cut and bruised his limbs and body 
most cruelly. 

. But in a moment he was on his feet, 
groping his way along the passage, with 
his hands held out before him, stumbling, 
falling at times, wounding himself, still 
pushing on. 

But in all his haste and terror he never 
forgot the ring in the little pocket made 
with horseshoe nails in the breast of his 
woollen shirt. Through all the strange 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


219 


vicissitudes of the night he had kept it 
safe, feeling carefully at frequent intervals 
to know if it still was there, grasping it 
even now with his little, bleeding hand as 
he staggered on in the darkness, in his 
wild, desperate effort to get out into places 
of the mine where human beings had that 
day been, and where these infernal shapes 
that hovered behind him and around him 
would never dare to follow. 

His outstretched hands struck a flat 
surface of clammy mould. He recoiled in 
terror, at first, not knowing what it was; 
but the second thought told him it was a 
door. He pushed it open, passed through, 
and felt a current of cold air drive down 
upon him. ’ That, he knew, must come from 
the air-shaft. He faced the current and 
moved on, and the farther he went the 
fresher, stronger, came the air against him. 
A faint hope sprang up in his breast, and 
visions of the joys that he might yet attain 
this Christmas Eve began to come, to save 
his mind from going wholly daft. 

And so he hurried on, groping, stagger- 
ing, stumbling, falling, cutting his poor, 


220 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


naked hands, and bruising his thinly clad 
limbs, fearing, hoping, praying, and coming 
at last, yes, coming at last, to the longed- 
for goal, the air-shaft of No. 6. 

He stood beneath it with his hands upon 
the rail of the ladder, and laughed in - 
delirious exultation ; and down upon his 
cut, bruised, bleeding body came a draught 
of ice-cold air that penetrated to the marrow 
of his bones. 

He did not think of the arduous task that 
lay before him still, an arduous task, in- 
deed, for a fresh, strong man : he only 
thought that at the top of those ladders 
was the free and open air ; that up there 
the stars shone and the wind blew ; that 
up there were houses with lights in them, 
where people lived ; that up there were 
human beings to whom he might yet speak 
before grim death should clutch him ; and 
that up there lived the lady, the beautiful 
lady whose sweet kiss had been the one 
supreme delight his young life had ever 
known. 

It was almost in a spirit of gayety that 
he climbed the first ladder, felt for the next 


DICK , ; THE DOOR-BOY. 


221 


one till he grasped the rounds securely, 
and then mounted that, and so up the third 
and to the fourth, first in one direction, 
then in the other, careful in passing from 
the top of one ladder to the foot of the 
next not to lose his hold, climbing slowly 
now, very slowly, for it was hard work and 
he was tired ; he confessed it to himself, 
that he was tired. 

On the fourth ladder he reached up and 
found that a round was missing. He felt 
for the next; that too was gone, and so was 
the next and the next. Then he climbed up 
on the last round in place and clung to the 
side rail of the ladder, and reached across 
the intervening space, and drew himself 
to where the rounds were again complete, 
and so went toiling upward to his tryst. 

It would have been no task for an athlete, 
in the light of day, to have covered the 
space once filled by those four missing 
rounds, but for that child, in the darkness 
of night, on the verge of exhaustion, with 
the grim spectres of the horrible still tug- 
ging at his heart, it was more than wonder- 
ful, it was terrible. 


222 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


The ice-cold water had dripped on the 
boy’s back till his thin, torn clothing was 
soaked through and through. He stopped 
at each half-dozen rounds to rest. He was 
so tired, he began to wonder if he could 
ever reach the top. 

Looking up he saw a square of light just 
discernible above him, and knew that he 
must be nearing the surface. He nerved 
himself to renewed effort. But the cold, 
the cold was terrible ; his hands were get- 
ting numb and his limbs awkward, and the 
most extreme care was requisite to hold 
him to his place. 

He labored on ; he reached the second 
ladder from the top ; he knew it, he could 
see it, his eyes were once more of use, he 
was coming up into the mild light of night, 
from the impenetrable darkness of the 
tomb. His heart beat fast and faster ; he 
would soon be out. 

But oh, how cold, how cold ! There be- 
gan to be ice on the rounds of the ladder. 
There was one spot where the little stream 
of water falling down the shaft struck 
across the second ladder from the top and 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 223 

froze, and froze, until the rounds were 
swollen almost to the point of meeting; 
and to this place, in his ascent, the boy had 
now come. 

His feet slipped awkwardly on the rounds 
below ; his bare, numb hands stuck pain- 
fully to the ice above ; he dragged himself 
to the very middle of the frozen section, 
reached out to grasp another round, slipped, 
swayed, clung for a second in horrible sus- 
pense, and then fell ! 

But it was not all over yet with poor 
Dick. Caught back miraculously from 
plunging full two hundred feet to the bot- 
tom of the shaft, he had fallen only to the 
foot of the ladder he was on, and lay there, 
wedged between that foot and the solid 
rock at his side, stunned and unconscious, 
but not dead. 

After a little time he revived. He knew 
where he was and what had happened, 
and wondered how far he had fallen. He 
looked up and saw only the two ladders 
above him still ; he looked around him and 
found that his position was perilous. He 
was in much pain. With an effort he freed 


224 DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 

himself, and by the most careful exertion 
regained his feet. 

But, what now? Which way? Above 
him was that dripping barrier of ice, below 
him were the haunting horrors of the mine, 
and to stay where he was would be to 
freeze to death in less time than he dared 
to think of. 

Then he looked up the shaft into the 
dim light at the top, and with all sensibil- 
ities, save hope and faith, dulled and dead- 
ened by the extreme of physical and mental 
suffering, he began once more the perilous 
ascent. 

What good angel held his feet and 
grasped his hands that they faltered not, nor 
failed across that bridge of ice ? For, cross 
it he did, left it wet and glimmering below 
him, and came bravely to the foot of the 
last ladder of them all. 

He stopped a few moments there, to 
catch his breath, and rub his mangled limbs 
and his bleeding, half-frozen hands, and 
then he started, in the very desperation of 
reviving hope, to climb through the last 
dark distance that stretched between him 
and happiness. 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 225 

O Dick, look up ; forget the horrors of 
the mine, the blood-stained journey from 
the depths to here ; be strong, have faith, 
you are coming to the top ; you are on the 
last round of the ladder ; you step out on 
the platform free ; free, Dick ; think of it ; 
free, in the open air, with the white snow 
around you, and the great sky above you, 
and the lights of dwellings in the distance ! 

Now, then, Dick — yes, the ring is safe 
— now then, which way ? 

Only one way for Dick. 

He knows that to cross the field to a 
private road, to follow that private road to 
the great highway, and then go up the 
highway to the first iron gate on the left, 
will bring him to the entrance of the grounds 
of Colonel Miles. 

The night is bitterly cold ; a fine snow 
comes sifting down, bjown about in icy 
clouds by the sharp, high wind. 

The snow already fallen is almost to poor 
Dick’s knees ; he has lost his cap in the 
mine, and his head is bare ; his water- 
soaked clothing has encased him in a cov- 
ering of ice, his wounded, frost-bitten hands 


226 


DICK, THE DOOR- BOY. 


and limbs are painful in the extreme, and 
his toilsome, staggering, halting, dreadful 
journey through the untracked snow, is 
marked with drops and streaks of blood. 

But he does not think now of his mis- 
fortunes nor his sufferings, nor his wander- 
ings in the mine, nor his perilous ascent ; 
one great desire, and only one, fills all his 
mind. 

If he can but get to where she is, the 
lady who was kind to him, who has filled his 
boyish heart with adoration ; if he can but 
show her that her faith in him was not mis- 
placed, that the token of her trust is safe ; 
if he can but speak to her, and hear her 
voice, and look into her wonderful eyes just 
onoe again, then nothing is too hard to 
bear, and no effort too desperate to make, 
for — Dick tries to speak it with his frost- 
bound lips — for “ she kissed me.” 


The Christmas Eve festivities in the 
noble house of Colonel Miles, on Forest 
Hill, were drawing to a close. Already 
had the first good-nights been said, and 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


227 


the little, tired and sleepy children, loaded 
down with toys and kisses, were being 
hurried off to their warm, snug, spotless 
beds. 

Many a time that evening had “ Colonel 
Miles’s little girl ” drawn aside the heavy 
curtains, and peered out into the stormy 
night to watch the coming of the door-boy 
from No. 6 shaft. 

“ He cometh not, she said,” 

remarked “Sir Charles” for the twentieth 
time ; and Julie was fain to add, at last, — 

“ I am aweary, aweary ; I would that I were dead.” 

She had borne the bantering of her com- 
panions through the whole evening, bravely, 
and with high spirits and quick repartee, 
for somehow there had sprung up in her 
heart an affection for the child, and she 
believed that he would surely keep his faith 
with her and come ; his clear, blue eyes 
were so honest and so pure, and he prom- 
ised her with such simple earnestness. 

Now she could no longer hope for his 
coming, but she had a thousand excuses 


228 


DICK, THE DOOR-BOY. 


for him still ; the night was so stormy, and 
the way so long, and he was such “ a little 
boy.” 

There was a sound of shuffling feet in 
the hall, some exclamations of astonish- 
ment, some hurried directions, and Julie 
rushed out to learn the cause of the alarm. 

The burly coachman was there, with 
Dick in his arms, a wretched, wounded, 
half-frozen little body. 

“ Found ’im just hout there by the steps, 
’alf-buried in the snow, ma’am.” 

They bore the poor, unconscious child 
up the broad stairway, where happier chil- 
dren had that evening sat to count their 
many treasures, and down the hall, into 
a room, the like of whose magnificence 
the boy had never even dreamed of, and 
dressed his wounds, and bound up, ten- 
derly, his frozen hands and limbs ; and the 
only being whom he ever knew, to love, 
sat by and held her breath, the while his 
own came, faint and tremulous, from the 
wind-swept shores of death. 

He had raised his bandaged hand and 
touched his bosom many times. They 


DICK , ; THE DOOR- BOY. 


229 


thought he was in pain there, and they 
opened his woollen shirt and found the 
pocket made with horseshoe nails, and 
in it still the golden, gem-crowned ring. 
And they looked at one another and 
turned away with tears in their eyes. 

Once a smile crept into the poor, white 
lips, and they began to move, and Julie, 
bending down above them, caught the 
whispered, almost indistinguishable words : 
“ She — kissed — me.” 

And once Dick opened wide his eyes 
and saw that beautiful face above him, and 
the face drew near, and the lips pressed 
his again, and, with the kiss, he fell asleep, 
a look upon his face that told of joy 
ineffable. 

After that he never looked up nor spoke. 

And when the gray light that ushered in 
the holy Christmas morning came creeping 
up the eastern sky, the child’s soul went up 
from the gloomy depths of earthly suffer- 
ing, to live forever in the glad, sweet, holy 
light of everlasting day. 

















. 















































































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